


An Eye For An Eye

by dgalerab



Series: Timelines 1-2.1 [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: A Very Long And Convoluted Excuse For Five Whump, Angst with a Happy Ending, But There's Also A Plot, Five Is Super Traumatized, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, So Are The Rest, Time Travel, canon divergent after season 1, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-11-07 03:00:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 79,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17952404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dgalerab/pseuds/dgalerab
Summary: As the world ends, Five takes his siblings back into their child bodies on the day he originally left. With the knowledge of how the world ends fresh in their minds, the Hargreeves siblings do what they can to leave clues for their past selves on how to grow up a little less fucked up before returning to the present.A present where they all have different lives they can't remember, there's a funnewapocalypse on the way, and Reginald Hargreeves remembers the day where all his children suddenly and inexplicably lost their minds and all respect for him at once a littletoowell.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I went from "This plot is so tightly woven that there's not a lot of room for fic ideas" to "Well okay maybe a few drabbles I can shoehorn in somewhere..." to "Okay maybe I'll write S2 speculative fic but it'll still be a loose collection of drabbles with the bare minimum of plot to have it make sense" to "Well I guess I'm writing a longfic."
> 
> So I think it's safe to say I don't know what I'm doing. 
> 
> Uh... will try to tag for anything possibly triggering or upsetting but I have the attention span of a flea so people are free to remind me to tag certain things that I may have forgotten (or special things they need tagged, I'll warn for just about anything).

Nothing about life in the Hargreeves household was ever normal.

There was never a moment where the oddities of the children, not to mention their upbringing, could be forgotten. Their schedules were regimented, cheerful diagrams for fighting crime correctly plastered all over the wall. Their meals were always eaten silently, listening to descriptions of survival techniques for the bleakest of situations.

Every so often, however, something would stand out as peculiar even in their strange lives.

Number Five’s outburst alone was not enough to qualify. Five has always been ambitious, and his demands to do and know more were not a new quality. The stabbing of the table for attention was inching towards strange, but it was only when he stormed out of the dining room that the remaining Hargreeves children found themselves startled by the events.

However, there were rules, and they continued their dinner in silence. Five would be back. He had probably gone to his room to fume, or, worst case, he had jumped into their father’s office to retaliate by messing up his papers. There would be hell to pay for such a thing, but none of them were new to being punished or watching their siblings be punished.

The children continued doing as they were told. They would look for Five when they had designated free time.

At least, that was what they had done the first time around. The first time around, they had all waited patiently, and then they had gone looking. They had checked around their father’s office, expecting to find Five in a surly mood while their father berated him. Their father was in his office and didn’t even look up at their search.

They’d continued the search in Five’s room, on the balconies. They had fanned out, after several hours. Five could jump between hiding spots, but they had learned how to keep up with him. There were only so many jumps he could do before he wore himself out.

But they had come up with nothing. They had slowly been forced to accept that Five had left. Then, they had slowly started to wonder if Five was coming back. Some of them had slowly realized that Five was not coming back.

But only the first time around.

The second time around, when Five stormed out, leaving only silence and the awkward clinking of cutlery, it lasted only a few moments before something in the air shifted rather violently.

All the children stopped. Six sets of cutlery dropped. There was a moment of tense silence, heads swivelling around in confusion.

Vanya Hargreeves collapsed off her chair with a loud thud, and chaos exploded through the room.

**

There was no day as clearly engraved in Five Hargeeves’ memory than the one where he’d ignored his father and time travelled into the future. He remembered every moment of it, the knife in the table, the inane though sadly apt metaphor his father had come up with, the shop front he’d been in front of when he’d jumped into summer.

Which was why when he felt the dam of time break, releasing his consciousness into his old body, he knew exactly which moment he’d arrived in.

His knees hit the ground hard as he stumbled, the exhaustion of such a jump catching up with him like sledgehammer to the chest. He fought back the urge to vomit. He tried to stand - the Academy was precisely 12.5 feet away - but his legs shook with the effort and he found himself back on his stinging knees.

It was an endeavor just to turn around enough to look at the Academy without passing out or throwing up. It was in view, which was a real fucking spit in the face.

Here he was, sitting in the very place and time where he’d made his biggest mistake,  _ looking _ at the family home he’d left behind, not a moment in his way, and he still couldn’t get to it. “Motherfucker,” he croaked.

“Oh, sweetie, do you need help?” a middle-aged lady asked.

Five was well aware that a simple smile would get him walked back to the Academy post haste, but frankly, he couldn’t bring himself to give a shit. “Fuck off, lady,” he spat.

She made the face that Five had gotten so used to lately, the shocked sternness that reeked of  _ young man where are your parents _ , and scurried off.

Five sighed and let himself fall over. Eventually, he would either shake off the exhaustion or one of his siblings would have to step outside  _ or _ he would pass out and someone would make the connection between his uniform and the  _ giant building right next to him just out of reach _ and take him home.

**

It had been a long time since Luther Hargreeves had felt his body was his own. It was such an absurd feeling to look down and see his hands free of the long tufts of hair he’d grown so accustomed to that it took him a moment longer than it should have to realize there was a lot more different than just the hair.

The effects of the serum had made him much larger, but he was much smaller than he had been before the serum had changed him. He was, judging by the rest of his siblings, around thirteen. He looked up at Allison, who had always been seated across from him at mealtimes, but she was busy kicking over her chair to rush to Vanya’s side.

Luther stood as quickly as he could. “Allison!” he shouted. It still hurt to think it, but Vanya was a threat whether they liked it or not. She could have killed Allison before and there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t do it again. 

Allison gave him a sharp look that made him pause. Luther wasn’t sure exactly what she was trying to convey with that look, but he knew she probably had a point. He hovered, suddenly unsure of what to do. He wanted to protect every member of his family - Vanya, too - but there was only one family member who had slit the throat of the other. “Just be careful.”

“She’s out cold anyway, it’s fine,” Klaus said.

“Children, sit back down,” came the sharp voice of their father.

The fact that he had such a strong urge to obey even after the revelations of the past few days - or the future few days? - was somewhat alarming, but he set his jaw and looked back at his suddenly very alive father. “Your mother will see to Number 7. Just because your brother disobeyed the rules does not mean we will be descending into anarchy.”

There was a stunned moment of silence before Klaus blurted, “Shut  _ up _ you evil old man.”

Luther would have put it more mildly, but he couldn’t argue with the sentiment. 

“Number  _ Four _ ,” Reginald said, and Luther tried not to flinch at the severity. They weren’t kids anymore, not mentally, but that voice had always preceded harrowing punishments. Ten thousand pushups in sweltering heat, standing in for target practice to “build trust  _ and _ accuracy,” or any number of chores that Pogo and Grace could have easily taken care of but which made keeping up with lessons absurdly difficult… the list went on.

“I heard a rumor you - uh - sleptforthreedays!” Allison shouted in a rush. 

Luther did flinch at the way their father keeled over, spreading his arms out of sheer guilt even after he’d hit the ground. 

“Oh my god, Allison,” Klaus whispered, like he wasn’t sure whether to be horrified or delighted. “You knocked Dad out cold.”

“I panicked!” Allison said.

“What if we  _ need him _ ,” Luther said. “I mean, he knew about the apocalypse, maybe we… told him?”

“The apocalypse actually happened, remember?” Klaus said. “If we told him, then we  _ failed _ .”

Luther paused. “Oh,” he said. “That’s true. But that doesn’t mean we won’t need him!”

“Guys, wait,” Diego interjected. “Forget about Dad.”

Luther gestured helplessly. Their father wasn’t a kind man, and Luther was still angry about the moon situation, but it still seemed wrong to just leave him lying on the floor under the table.

“He mentioned our brother,” Diego said, pointing at the table. More specifically, the knife in the table. “And there’s still food at Five’s spot. I think he just left.”

“Oh!” Klaus gasped, dancing a little with excitement at the revelation. “It’s the day he ran out!”

“We’ve got to find him,” Diego said. “Come on, we’ve got to find him!”

“Wait, we at least have to  _ hide _ Dad!” Luther called after him, but only Allison was still in the room to hear it, and she was clearly not listening. Luther groaned, dragging Reginald under the table and pushing in the chairs around him. “Be  _ careful _ , okay?” he told Allison, rushing to follow the others.

**

“Took you long enough,” Five muttered, leveling his characteristic glare at Klaus when Klaus leaned over him. He’d been an asshole even before leaving, but he had it down to an artform. The way he looked right now took some of the power out of it, though. He was soaked in his own sweat, knees scraped raw from what looked like a bad fall and his face the color of a broken dumpster mattress.

“Hey buddy,” Klaus said, making sure to be extra cheerful out of sheer spite. Diego skidded into his back, nearly knocking him over. Klaus gave him a disbelieving look. “Really?” He looked at Ben out of habit and made a face. Ben rolled his eyes, eying Five.

“Are you hurt?” Diego asked, helping Five into sitting.

“No,” Five snapped. “I’m  _ exhausted  _ from dragging all your asses back in time.”

“That was your idea…” Klaus whispered under his breath.

“Alright, come on, maybe Mom can help,” Diego said.

“I’d prefer  _ coffee _ .”

“Or sleep,” Klaus suggested. It was a bad sign if he was making the most sense about self care, but a look at Ben confirmed that it was true, because Ben nodded at him. “Sleep sounds like a good idea.”

Luther grabbed onto his shoulder to turn a sharp corner into standing over Five. Diego took Five’s hand and pulled him to his feet. “Let’s just get him inside first,” he said, putting his arm around Five’s waist to steady him when he swayed.

Five managed half a step before he was bending forward to narrowly avoid puking on his own shoes. Klaus backed up. If he was going to be sober, he wouldn’t risk getting vomit on him, arguably one of the biggest downsides of being high. Or possibly one of the many downsides to being high. Actually… “Wait,” he said. “Holy shit you guys, I’m  _ totally _ sober!”

“Good for you, we’ll get you a chip after we’ve figured out the apocalypse,” Diego snarked, watching Five spit out the taste of throwing up.

“He can’t walk,” Luther said. “I’m going to carry him up.”

“ _ No _ ,” Five said, but he was already off his feet as Luther started back to the Academy.

Klaus smiled at a passing lady. “Bad sandwich,” he whispered.

“KLAUS.”

“Coming!”

He raced after them, running face first into Ben’s back and nearly falling down the stairs as a result. “Fuck, how sober am I exactly?” he muttered, then paused. “Wait, does anyone else see Ben?”

“Holy shit,  _ Ben _ ,” Luther blurted, whirling around on the stairs to look. Diego gaped at Ben for a moment.

“Guys,” Ben said, slowly, “You have  _ no _ idea how hard it is for Klaus to be the only person you can talk to.”

Klaus gasped dramatically. “ _ Hey _ .”

Diego leaped down the stairs two at a time to grab Ben and hug him. Luther moved to follow, but Five flailed. “If you drop me I  _ will _ kill you,” he hissed, grabbing onto Luther’s hair for insurance. He stopped, giving Ben a glance that was almost sheepish by his standards. “Hi Ben.”

“Hey,” Ben said, grinning over Diego’s shoulder.

“Okay this is heartwarming but I think Five’s going to throw up on Luther if we don’t put him into a bed and make him sleep,” Klaus said.

“Yeah,” Ben murmured, peeling Diego off of himself. “Let’s get Mom.”

“I don’t need help.”

“Like I said, sleep.”

“Sadly, Klaus seems to be right.” Five made a face. “I’m taking advice on how to take care of myself from  _ Klaus _ .”

“Hey, I am so sober right now, I have a headache just thinking about it,” Klaus said. “Guys, I’m literally a psychology experiment now! Is addiction all in the head or is it all chemical?”

Five groaned, going paler, swallowing hard. “Please shut up,” he croaked.

“Right, sorry,” Luther said, continuing up the stairs.

**

It was weird being able to talk to everyone. Ben kept forgetting, waiting for things he could say to Klaus to come up out of sheer reflex. Luther kept glancing at him sidelong. Ben could tell an apology of some kind from him was coming, but Ben hoped he could avoid it as long as possible. He didn’t want to think about his death - especially not with people who couldn’t joke about it like Klaus did.

Not to mention, he wasn’t at all sure if he blamed Luther or not. He’d never really liked missions. It was hard not to kill people with his power. Luther had always been the one to push him into it, but he’d been pushed to make the missions go smoothly too.

Ben looked down at Five, currently drooling onto his pillow, dead asleep. He’d been chugging coffee ever since coming back, and he’d looked exhausted on every level. There wasn’t a lot that could be done about several decades of emotional exhaustion, but at least some time to really sleep was a start.

“So, does anyone actually have an idea about what to do with Vanya?” he asked. It was weird to be able to ask. He always had to wait for Klaus to either listen to him or for the family to get there on their own. He’d learned a thing or two about just how slow they all were from that.

“I don’t know,” Luther said. “Five said fix her, but… I mean… are we planning to just… re-do our lives from square one?”

“Won’t change the things that got Vanya here in the first place,” Ben said. It had seemed a reasonable idea in the face of a meteor shower hurtling towards the Earth, but now that they were here, it was difficult to see what to do next.

“Okay,” Diego said, gesturing at them to join him in the door. “I’ve uh… taken care of Pogo.”

“What did you do?” Luther said, looking ridiculously alarmed.

“I convinced Mom to tell him Dad wanted him to take care of a certain errand in Brazil,” Diego said.

“Did you tell her what’s up?” Ben asked.

“No,” Diego said, guilt showing on his face. “She says her programming won’t allow her to keep secrets from Dad, so I just… kind of… asked her to trust me.”

“Is Allison alone with Vanya?” Luther asked. “Come on, Diego, I told you--”

“Allison says she can handle it,” Diego said. He rolled his eyes. “She also said to remind you that she was right about going in alone to see Vanya at the concert hall.”

“Whoa, whoa, we don’t know that,” Luther said. “I mean, she beat us easily, sure, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t have killed Allison. In fact, it makes it more likely that Allison was in danger!”

“Luther,” Ben said, holding up a hand. “Calm down. I’m pretty sure Allison’s got this. Plus, we don’t even know if Vanya will wake up. I mean, she used her powers so much it  _ blew up the moon _ .”

Klaus nodded, gesturing at Ben as if to show that he was talking. Ben smiled at him. In some ways, he was fairly sure he’d come to miss being Klaus’ residential ghost. Klaus smiled back, though it was slightly lopsided. Ben had watched Klaus long enough to know that Klaus was realizing this would be a lot harder for Klaus than it would be for Ben.

Luther let out a groan. “Fine, but I’d feel better if she wasn’t alone with Vanya.”

Diego rolled his eyes. “If Five doesn’t need anything, I’ll ask Mom to stay with them.”

“Five just needs some sleep,” Ben said. “In fact, we should leave him alone. He’s fast asleep now, but he’s going to hear us if we keep talking.”

“Already did, assholes,” Five muttered, rolling over to turn his back to them and pull a pillow over his head.

“Sorry,” Klaus whispered, tip toeing out of the room with the least amount of subtlety a person could muster and closing the door after himself.

**

Five woke up still sore and still tired. 

His only option was to sneak out of the house and get a cup before his siblings noticed and accosted him with planning. He wasn’t going to plan shit without some caffeine. They didn’t have a time limit anymore, which meant he had seventeen years to go get coffee.

He groaned, quickly grabbing his clothes to change as quickly as possible. He wasn’t sure if he could manage a jump down to the street just yet, but as long as he kept to the stairwells, he could probably do a couple smaller jumps in a row, at which point he could hopefully walk to the diner…

“I already got you coffee,” Ben said from the door, making Five jump.

It wasn’t easy to sneak up on him anymore. He narrowed his eyes. “How’d you do that?”

“I’ve got a lot of practice being a ghost,” Ben said with a wry smile.

Of course he’d be glib about his own death after so much time with Klaus, but somehow it still stung. Five had thought he’d gotten over the grief after so much time alone, but seeing Ben, especially Ben exactly as old as he had been when Five had left them, that was different.

Luther, Diego, Allison and Klaus had all been in the rubble when Five had arrived. He’d seen them as adults, as stranger’s faces. The realization had sunk in slowly, giving him some time to brace himself for the moment when he finally saw Klaus’ tattoo. (Not that it had helped much.)

He’d found out about Ben from a book. He’d been so relieved to see Vanya’s face, even if it was just a picture on a cover, he’d snatched it up like a man dying from thirst. It had been pretty much what he’d been expecting. Even Ben’s death wasn’t much of a surprise, but Five had gone home to Delores and cried for three days anyway. 

He’d nearly died of thirst after that. If it wasn’t for accidentally stumbling over some bottled water he’d missed near his hideout by accident, he probably would have collapsed in his numb, delirious wandering.

Ben and Vanya had always been his favorite siblings. They’d been ranked beneath him, which was a good feeling, but they were also quiet, gentle and smart - qualities Reginald had mostly not valued highly.

Five took the cup from Ben gingerly. “Sorry about your death and all,” he muttered, looking away as quickly as he could. Damn it, he hadn’t cried for over fifteen years, he wasn’t going to break that record now. He took a long sip of the coffee.

“Sorry you had to find out about it alone in a barren wasteland from a book,” Ben said.

It took three tries to swallow the sip. “I got over it,” Five said.

“No you didn’t,” Ben said.

Five turned on his heel and shoved past him before that line of thought could go anywhere.

“Hey,” Ben called. “You can’t fool me, I’ve been Klaus’ fever dream for years now!”

Five jumped down a floor to find the nearest staircase to sit on and try to breathe it off and think.  _ Vanya _ . The cause of the apocalypse was  _ Vanya _ . No amount of the probability maps in the world could have led him to  _ that _ conclusion. The part of him that had spent those years in the Commission said that this simplified matters - kill Vanya, problem solved.

And yet there was no way he could actually kill Vanya. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, sighing bitterly. No, he’d have to be creative. He’d have to think of a way to fix Vanya.

He finished his coffee and made his way to the living room. It was tempting to grab a few shots before his siblings arrived to pester him, but he needed to be clear for this to work. No matter how much it sucked and no matter how hard it was to see Ben - hell, to see  _ everyone _ as kids again.

It was just close enough to being like he’d never left to hurt.

“Hey, you’re awake,” Diego said. “You alright?”

“I’m fine,” Five snapped. “We need a plan.”

Diego nodded, though he still seemed concerned. “How do we fix Vanya if she’s… you know…”

“Still her present self?” Five asked. “Well. I guess future self.”

“I meant unconscious,” Diego said. “But yeah, that too.”

“Her being unconscious might work in our favor,” Five muttered. “At least it makes it less likely she’ll explode again and kill us. And the rest of the world.”

“Right, okay,” Diego said. “But, uh… I mean, even if we start over from thirteen, the shit we’ve gone through the first time won’t just vanish, right? I mean, we’re still our old consciousnesses, or whatever?”

“Yes, Diego,” Five said, putting his hands in his pockets to look at the ceiling while he thought. “We can’t stay in this time. We’ll have to go back to your present.”

“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of coming here?” Luther asked from the doorway.

“Not if we change the past while we’re here,” Five said. He held up a finger, the realization dawning on him. “When we go forward, our - or rather  _ your _ \- thirteen year old consciousnesses should return. But they’ll return to whatever we leave behind. So, if we leave your past selves clues for how to change…”

Diego sat up straight, looking between Luther and Five as he put it together. “... Then we’ll travel back to a different present.”   
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I ended up with a lot of buffer chapters so I guess I'll commit to a weekly schedule. Probably on Tuesdays, from here on out.
> 
> Also, I was not expecting the feedback this got! Wow! Thank you all!!!

“I don’t see why we can’t just write our past selves a letter,” Luther said.

There had been moments when Five had been so alone he’d found himself missing Luther’s earnest approach to life. Moments when, even though he and Luther had always been at odds the most of all their siblings, he would have killed to have Luther with him. Even if none of his other siblings were there. Now that he wasn’t alone, though, it was hard to remember that despondent fondness. Mostly, he just wished Luther would keep up. They didn’t have forever.

“Imagine, if you will, that you’re thirteen again,” Five said, forcing an acrid smile onto his face. He knew it was condescending - but he couldn’t help but think that Luther was used to it anyway.

Luther shrugged his shoulders as if to say, _Okay, and?_

Five breathed in through his nose, continuing to smile. “You get a letter from, allegedly, yourself from the future, giving you a checklist of things to fix about yourself and your life and your family. What do you do?”

“Call it bullshit,” Diego said. He was almost as boneheaded as Luther, but at least he wasn’t boxed into the idea of _leadership_ that their father had pushed so hard onto Luther, and that made him marginally easier to work with. “Or cut corners. Especially if I get a letter saying I need to be nice to my sister or the world ends.”

“I’d assume the old man forged it to get us to listen to him,” Klaus interjected.

“Exactly,” Five replied raising his hands to gesture with them. “So, we can’t just tell your past selves to _do better_. We have to lead them to it _organically_.”

Luther sat back, breathing out slowly. His eyes roved as he thought it over, then muttered, “We shouldn’t have knocked dad out.”

“It seemed like the best decision,” Allison protested. Five had to admit, he would have preferred a slightly more nuanced approach, but he supposed under pressure it wasn’t the worst decision she could have made. “He would have handed our asses to us for stepping out of line, and even if he listened long enough for us to tell him the situation, he’s the one who did this to Vanya.” She cast a furtive glance towards the room where Vanya was still sleeping. Their mother was still with her, but Allison was right. It was risky to chance her waking up alone.

“But he has the most information about Vanya’s powers, our training, our routine…” Luther said. “I mean, all of that could have helped.”

“He would have never told us any of that,” Five muttered.

“I know where his research is,” Klaus blurted. “I think.”

“You think?” Five hissed. “What do you mean, you think?” He didn’t know how Klaus managed to stumble on so many useful things and never use any of them, but Five wanted to shake him.

“Uhh,” Klaus said. “There was a notebook that I lost while trying to pawn things for drug money, no big deal.”

“He tossed it into a dumpster,” Ben added.

Klaus gave him a look of the utmost betrayal. “Thanks, _Ben_.” Ben shrugged, clearly harboring no regrets.

“Klaus,” Five gritted out. If Klaus had lost a notebook, that notebook could have easily fallen into the wrong hands, and it might have been a deciding factor in the apocalypse. He clenched his teeth. As much as Five wanted to strangle his brother, losing or not losing the notebook probably wouldn’t have been much of a difference. The Commission would have found a way to spur things along. He bit back the many insults dancing on his tongue. “Where is it _now_?”

“In Dad’s office. I’ll go get it,” Klaus said, scurrying off before he could face any consequences for his carelessness. As usual.

“We also know where the surveillance footage is,” Allison said. “Right? That could help, too.”

Five nodded. “It could, but I think Dad’s research will help us the most. The footage is just an outside perspective on what we all already know. And, of course, Vanya’s book has some use, too.” He’d read it so many times he’d nearly memorized the whole thing. All his notes had been in the margins of those pages, surrounding the tales of his family that he hadn’t been able to experience himself. He put his hand to his chin, mulling over the parts that seemed relevant now. The isolation, the constant mentions of how _ordinary_ she was…

“Look, I need to be with Vanya,” Allison said. “If you have something, let me know.”

“I’ll get you right away,” Five promised. It was a relief that at least one person knew what they were doing. Allison was better suited to keep Vanya company anyway, and it was one thing Five didn’t have to worry about.

“But--” Luther started.

Five rolled his eyes. “She’s right,” he said. “If Vanya wakes up alone, she might lose control again, and we know we can’t stop her if that happens. So someone has to be with her, and Allison is taking the initiative.”

“I will be fine,” Allison said, glaring at him as she stood. “Mom’s with me.”

“Okay,” Luther muttered, though he was clearly not happy about it.

Allison sighed, but she squeezed his shoulder as she passed him.

“So basically we have to trick ourselves into being happier people?” Ben questioned, brow furrowing.

“ _You_ should be tricking yourself into staying _alive_ ,” Five said. “From Vanya’s book it’s obvious you dying had a profound effect on how powerless she felt.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Diego muttered.

Five grimaced at him pointedly.  It wasn’t as though he didn’t know it was a horror for all of them. It wasn’t _his_ fault he had to spell everything out for them. Diego sat back, rolling his eyes, but thankfully he stayed quiet and let Five return to his thoughts, pacing as he tried to calculate in his head what would make the most difference.

**

It took Klaus a moment to rummage through the desk. He’d been too high to really commit the place to memory, but he did remember the box. It was tucked under the desk, and Klaus sighed in relief when he finally found it. He’d seen Five’s glare and he was not eager to return to it without something concrete.

He jimmied the lock, shaking out the contents so he could find the notebook. “Hah!” he cried, before realizing he was talking to thin air. Ben hadn’t come with him. He frowned down at the notebook. “Right.”

As he started out the door, he moved to put the notebook into his jacket pocket before pausing. He’d always wondered what the old man had to say about him when he wasn’t around to hear it. He opened the notebook, skimming it as he ran back down the stairs.

He could hear Ben and Five talking, snippets of, _“If we could somehow slip certain hints into their rooms,”_ and, _“Maybe a push in that direction…”_

He didn’t want to admit how much those snatches of conversation sounded a lot like their father ruminating on how to make Klaus less scared of the dark when he couldn’t maintain a connection with the dead. “Oh, man, there’s some juicy stuff in this,” Klaus laughed as he re-entered the room. The only alternative Klaus knew to this sort of awkward situation was to try to deflect with bad humor.

“Yeah, and if we could ask Dad about it--”

“Ah, Luther,” Klaus said, flipping back to the page he’d seen in passing. “Dad _said_ your greatest weakness was your heroic _naiveté_.” He said with a flourish. “Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, I am a,” he paused for effect as he rifled through the pages, “childish coward incapable of realizing a modicum of my own potential.”

“Give me that,” Five snapped. “This isn’t gossip for you to joke about, the fate of the world might depend on what we find in there.”

“Right,” Klaus said, suddenly overcome with the urge to rub his nose in that crotchety self importance. He’d never even given Klaus his twenty bucks, and Klaus had broken a snow globe with his _head._ “You,” he flipped quickly, raising the notebook over his head when Five jumped across the room to get it. Even as a thirteen year old, Klaus was still taller than Five, “are prone to reckless fits of delusions of grandeur.” Now _that_ sounded awfully familiar...

Five yanked his collar to try to unbalance him and make another grab for the notebook. He was a strong little guy, that was for sure. “I’m glad you think this is _funny_ , Klaus.”

“What? Funny? No!” Klaus said dramatically. “I think it’s spot on, you were always the spitting image of the old man--”

In another flash, Five was on his other side, wrenching his arm down to snatch the notebook from his hands. It hurt, but it was worth it. At least, it was until he saw the fury on Five’s face. “I am _not_ like him,” Five growled, and then he was gone.

“Well _done_ ,” Diego called from the couch.

“Whaaat,” Klaus whined. “I didn’t think it’d bother him that much!”

Ben raised a brow at him. Being younger hadn’t done much for the sheer amount of judgement he could impart with such a simple motion.

Klaus groaned. “Fine, I will _apologize_ ,” he said, dragging himself back to the stairwell. He raced up them two steps at a time. “Five! Hey, Five!”

He wandered back to the room where Five had slept - Five’s room, he reminded himself. It had always been Five’s room, though at some point he’d sort of stopped thinking about it as such. Or at all. He poked his head in, hoping to find the room empty so he could go back to his brothers and say he gave it his best shot without actually having to deal with an even crankier Five than usual.

However, luck wasn’t having it. Five was sitting in the window, studiously reading the notebook. Klaus wasn’t sure if he’d heard the door creak open, and he wondered if he could get away with retreating quickly.

“If I was like Dad, Vanya would have been long dead,” Five muttered.

Klaus sighed. Okay, fine, so he wasn’t going to abandon this thankless task if that’s where his brother’s brain had taken him. He pushed the door open. “I’m sorry, okay,” he said. “It wasn’t even much of a dig against you. I just thought it was funny that he could write that about you and not have his hypocritical head explode from irony immediately. And also you’re an abrasive old man obsessed with the end of the world, but I didn’t think it’d strike a chord like that.”

Five didn’t look up at him, turning the page in silence.

“Look, it’s not so bad to be kinda like him. I mean, he was the shittiest father _ever_ , but he wasn’t _entirely_ heartless,” Klaus tried. “I mean, when you left, he put your picture up above the mantel and everything!”

“You of all people should know that wasn’t because he cared about me disappearing,” Five said, still not looking up. “Did he ever ask any of you to look for me?” Five’s face twisted in a way that Klaus really didn’t want to see on a 13 year old face. Klaus was kind of glad he still hadn’t looked up. “No. He didn’t miss me, and the painting wasn’t because he didn’t want to _forget_ about me.”

Sadly, Klaus knew exactly what he meant. He wandered to the bed and sat. “Yeah, I know. It was an example to the rest of us,” he said. “Look what’ll happen if you disobey dear old Daddy…”

Five didn’t respond, but it had been too long since he’d turned a page for him to still act like he was reading.

“Okay, fine, fine,” Klaus said. “Maybe I did say it to be a dick. Ben was all worried about you while you were sleeping, and I’m used to having a supernatural monopoly over Ben. So, maybe I had a little pent up jealousy. The point is, I know you’re not Dad.”

Five finally remembered to turn the page. “It doesn’t matter. We don’t have time for that kind of childish squabbling,” he said.

“You know, the apocalypse isn’t in a week anymore,” Klaus pointed out. “You can wake up and smell the lack of total isolation from all of humanity.”

“Just shut up and go do something useful for once in your life,” Five said, though it was with relatively little bite.

“I guess you probably need Ben more than I do,” Klaus remarked. He kind of wanted to get high again, but not that much. Maybe just a drink. At any rate, he felt pretty okay now, and he might even eat some breakfast without Ben suggesting it. Meanwhile, he was pretty sure Five had self-destructed decades ago and was still at it.

“I don’t _need_ Ben,” Five snapped, closing the notebook to glare at Klaus. “I don’t _need_ anyone. Why can’t you all get it through your thick skulls that I’m _not_ a _kid_. I _grew up_ without _any_ of you.”

“Sounded real fun, too,” Klaus said, bouncing off the bed to his feet. “Anyway, whatever. I’m sorry I accused you of being Dad, oldtimer. Have fun reading his condescending ‘research’,” he made air quotes, “about us kids. Hey, maybe if we do the exact opposite of everything he ever thought or did, we’ll actually get somewhere.”

“I don’t care what you say about me.” Now that was just a ridiculous lie, Klaus thought. “Leave me alone,” Five hissed, turning his back on Klaus.

“Asshole,” Klaus jabbed on his way out. He made it two steps before his conscience kicked in, as though it was realizing that Ben wasn’t here to do its job for it. He groaned into the empty air, then turned around, striding over quickly so he could grab the notebook out of Five’s hand before Five could gut him for trying.

“Klaus!” Five snarled, disappearing and reappearing beside Klaus to grab at it.

Klaus stood on his tiptoes and held it out of reach, jumping onto the bed to get even higher. Five followed, appearing on the nightstand to try to get a leg up on Klaus and his height.

“No,” Klaus said, leaping off the bed to give himself enough time to unbutton his pants and shove the book down them.

“What. Is. _Wrong_ with you?” Five yelled. The blue light of his power surged to life, warping the space around him, but he didn’t go anywhere, instead falling back onto his ass on the bed. He let out a hissed _damn_ at having reached his limit so quickly, but he was quickly focused back on Klaus like a hawk on a rabbit. “Klaus, give me the notebook.”

Klaus sighed, pulling his shirt over the notebook defensively. “No!” He paused, not sure how to go about _saying_ the things he was still currently realizing. “Look, I said I was sorry, so stop being such a surly old man about it!”

“Seriously?” Five said, narrowing his eyes in disbelief. “I already told you! This is about the end of the world, it’s not about your _feelings_ , or my feelings, or who Ben--”

“You’re wrong,” Klaus said. “You’ve been alone so long you don’t even see it anymore, but you’re _wrong_.”

“I’m not wrong,” Five spat, like the very concept of him being wrong was ludicrous, if not downright blasphemous.

“Yeah, you are,” Klaus said. “Allison and Luther are barely talking. I mean, I know Allison has to take care of Vanya, but Luther keeps annoying her with his overprotective bullshit. No one knows how to react to Ben being back, it’s only a matter of time before Diego and Luther get into a fight about something, and now you’re up here sulking alone because I said something careless!” He danced a little to get the notebook to stop cutting into his privates. “I mean… I’m always going to say something careless! I’ve spent fifteen years actively avoiding thinking!”

“ _What_ is your point, exactly?” Five said, with that condescending smile that barely contained his obvious desire to steal back the notebook and beat Klaus to death with it.

“Dad’s research,” Klaus said, fishing it out of his pants, “is not going to give us answers. I mean, we’re trying to make ourselves better. To get us to be there for one another. I mean, Vanya specifically, but… We need to be better at sticking together. And how are we going to figure out how to do that if we can’t even talk to each other _now_ for more than ten minutes before everyone runs off to go… brood on their own.” He took a breath, looking down at the notebook. “Dad doesn’t have the answers. Dad fucked up basically everything he could possibly fuck up with us. We have the answers. All of us, together.”

Five watched him quietly, mouth twisting slightly as though he’d just realized he was going to have to agree with Klaus. Now _that_ served him right.

“You said you’re not like Dad, and I believe you,” Klaus said, extending the notebook over. “But you’ve gotta prove it. Don’t try to find the answers by coming up with some manipulative mind games while you’re holed up in your room with a bunch of notes. Like certain ancient, sadistic persons I won’t name.”

Five’s face turned even more sour, but he took the notebook, refusing to look Klaus in the eyes. He brushed his thumb across the leather cover.

Klaus sighed and turned to go. He’d made his point.

“You’re right,” Five said, under his breath.

It was a thousand times more than Klaus had been expecting. He whirled around to look at Five with a grin. “I’m sorry, what was that?”  he purred, leaning in.

Five finally met his eyes, but only to give him a threatening look. “Don’t push your luck.”

**

“You really think it’s a good idea for us to be doing this in Vanya’s room?” Luther asked nervously, glancing at the way they’d all crowded around Vanya’s bed. “I mean, what if she wakes up pissed?”

Allison rolled her eyes. It was hard for all of them to accept that Vanya was the cause of the apocalypse. She’d always been gentle and reserved, and Allison still couldn’t imagine her hurting a fly. The incident with the bow had been a flash of anger in a storm of power Vanya wasn’t used to. Allison had rumored pretty much all of her siblings into dangerous and sometimes almost deadly situations during temper tantrums, so who was she to judge? And at the concert hall… Well, Allison was pretty sure that was barely their sister.

But Luther seemed to be taking this whole situation hardest of all. He’d always needed to protect his family, and needing to protect his family from one of his family had put him well out of his depth. Allison felt for him - she knew as much as anyone how much Luther wanted to do what was right, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to tell him to shut up before he ruined everything _again_.

“I’m not leaving her,” Allison said, taking Vanya’s clammy hand into her own and squeezing. “So if you want this to be a family decision, we’ll have to risk it.”

“I got some noisemakers from my room so we can startle her again if she gets weird,” Klaus said. “I figure as long as she’s not pointing at the moon it’s cool. Where’s the moon right now?”

“About ten degrees below the horizon,” Five said. “Also, I very much doubt she’ll wake up any time soon.”

Klaus squinted at him. “How do you just know that off the top of your head? Didn’t you grow up in a world without a moon?”

“Most of you aren’t used to exhausting the capacity of your powers, but I am,” Five continued, without so much as indicating he’d heard Klaus. “She’s not technically in the same body, but it’s clear at this point her consciousness bore the weight of her little concert. She went from never using her powers at all to using them on massive scales several times in a row without enough rest between them. Remember the time I tried to jump across the city?”

“And you nearly got run over because you ended up poofing into a street about midway and passing out and then Dad locked you in your room for a week?” Klaus said cheerily. He’d enjoyed that at the time too, Allison recalled, had found it hilarious that the family’s most ambitious go-getter was banned from lessons.

“Yes, that time,” Five hissed through his teeth. He had _not_ enjoyed Klaus’ reaction. “I slept through most of that week, and for the rest of it I was too exhausted to even jump out of the room.”

“Wait did he _literally_ lock you in your room?” Klaus said, smile fading.

“Of course he did,” Five said, casually sliding his hands into his pockets. “But that’s not important right now.”

“Every time I think I can’t hate the old geezer more…” Klaus muttered to Allison.

“My _point_ is,” Five said, raising his voice enough to make Klaus jump and nod at him, “that even if Vanya does wake up, I can’t imagine she’ll be able to use her powers like she did before for a while.”

Luther tilted his head a little to acknowledge the point.

“She can still stab us,” Diego pointed out.

Allison shook her head. “If she can’t lose control of her powers, I don’t think she’d hurt any of us. The only reason she hurt me and brought down the Academy, she got swept up in them.”

“She pretty obviously killed Pogo on purpose…” Luther muttered.

“ _After_ she was already carried away with it,” Allison snapped.  “Because _someone_ locked her in the basement.”

“What else was I supposed to do?!”

“ _Enough_ ,” Five gritted out. “Honestly, how can none of you stay focused for a single minute? Vanya is not a threat to us _now_ , but she _will_ be if we don’t _think_ of something.”

“We could steal her medication,” Allison said. The medication had been what suppressed her powers, even if Allison had lent them the final kick. She sighed. “Of course, she’d probably just tell Dad and he’d give her a new bottle.”

“Not to mention she’d also need to practice her powers,” Five said. “We can’t just let her loose on the world with no explanation to anyone. It wouldn’t be safe for her or anyone else.”

Allison made a face, but nodded.

“What, so he’s allowed to say it?” Luther protested.

“He’s actually listening to me,” Allison said. “I told you to let her go, and then I told you to let me go in alone!”

“She has a point, Luther,” Five said dryly, to a satisfying murmur of agreement.

“I just…” Luther said helplessly, “I just wanted some time to figure out what to do! She slit Allison’s throat! How was I supposed to ignore that?”

“The day before that you threw me into a wall!” Klaus said. “ _And_ choked me!”

“That’s different!”

“ _How?”_

“I know my limits!” Luther yelled. “And I was drunk!”

Five made a face to himself as though he really wanted to say those were two entirely opposite statements without adding to the derailment of the conversation he was trying to have.

 “And… and Allison was the only person who was thinking of Vanya the whole time! I mean, if there was anyone who Vanya should have never hurt, it was--”

“Allison’s nearly killed all of us before,” Diego pointed out. “Remember when she rumored Klaus into sticking his hand down the dishwasher because he stole her favorite pen?”

“Oh yeah and you all had to run to switch it off before I did,” Klaus said, laughing. “Good times.”

Allison rolled her eyes. “Okay, guys, we don’t need to--”

“Oh, oh, remember the time she rumored Ben into jumping down the stairs because he tripped her during our drills?” Klaus added.

Ben nodded “And that was an accident.”

“I didn’t know it was an accident!”

“You rumored me off a tenth story ledge that one time,” Five added, irritatingly casual about it.

“You set my hair on fire and I knew you’d be fine!” Allison protested.

Five shrugged. Even at the time, that outburst had probably scared Allison more than it had Five. “The point is, we’ve all done awful things with our powers when we didn’t realize we were doing it, and we all grew up with constant practice and training. Which means we have to be careful with Vanya, but it also means Allison is right. She’s still our sister and we need to treat her like it.”

Luther’s shoulders slumped. “Fine,” he mumbled. “Sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” Allison said.

“So, back to what actually matters. We know a simple letter won’t work,” Five continued. “Dad will never let Vanya train her powers, but that’s because Dad is--”

“--a sadistic old codger--”

“--lacking in certain kinds of approaches.” He looked at the notebook in his hand. “From what I can tell, he knew that Vanya had a lot of trouble adjusting to the connection between her powers and her emotions. I think, to some extent, it’s a two way street, which makes it very hard to balance them. And if we want a working example of how well Dad handled the emotional sides of our powers, just look at Klaus.”

“I am,” Klaus said cheerily, “ _so_ very traumatized.”

“We all are,” Five said. “So. We’ll have to convince our past selves to train Vanya without Dad finding out, but we also need her to find out about her powers calmly and feel accepted when she started getting used to them.”

“How?” Allison asked. “I mean… she’s already gone… six, seven years being told by all of us that she’s ordinary. How do we convince ourselves, much less her? Much less _calmly_.”

Five made a face. “I have no idea.”

“I know! We’ll reveal it to them with something fun.” Klaus clapped his hands, brightening. “Like a treasure hunt. Everyone likes treasure hunts.”

“What are you talking about?” Diego asked. Allison joined him with an exasperated look of her own.

Five hummed to himself thoughtfully. “You know,” he said, to the room more than to them directly, “he’s not wrong.”

Everyone, including Klaus, turned to look at him with incredulous looks and proclaimed, “ _What?_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize a bunch of 13 year old Umbrella Academy kids running around on a fake treasure hunt sounds like a delightful story so I feel like I should warn you that the main story will be them as adults (but there will also be flashbacks, so... You win some you lose some.)
> 
> Also honestly you cannot tell me that a bunch of teenagers all the same age living in one house with superpowers and bad parenting (Grace is there but still) did not come very close to killing each other many times. My aunt and my dad have 1 year age difference and my aunt hit my dad in the face with a hoe at that age. (Let me tell you not a family reunion goes by without a lot of very inappropriate puns about THAT.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning: I know a lot of people don't like Allison/Luther for... well, obvious reasons, but I'm of the opinion that in the grand scheme of the many, many fucked up things happening in the Hargreeves family, something that makes Allison happier is pretty low on the list, so while I don't expect for their relationship to be a very big thing in this story (it'll probably get less focus here than in the show) it IS going to be present and I'm going to handle it as just... kind of a very weird but straight forward romance.
> 
> (But this chapter will probably be the most obvious mention of it. So. Yes. If that is a thing that bothers you, read with caution.)

“Are you seriously listening to  _ Klaus? _ ” Diego asked, watching as Five scribbled furiously onto a pile of hastily assembled loose scraps of paper. Each time he finished, he would roll them quickly before they could get a good look and put them into a pile of conscientiously ragged-looking little scrolls.

“Klaus has good ideas once in a blue moon,” Five murmured, adding the scrap he’d just finished to the pile and switching to a notebook that he’d started collecting indecipherable equations in. He quietly tallied up the notes, then jotted something down. “A treasure hunt has a certain allure to it that would have appealed to us at that age, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, this isn’t the Goonies,” Diego said. “Going on an adventure isn’t going to solve our problems. We had plenty of adventure in the first place.”

“We did, maybe,” Five said, grabbing another paper. “But Vanya didn’t. Besides, our adventures were for Dad’s goals, not to benefit  _ us _ in any way.”

Diego sighed, pulling up a chair. “What are the equations?” Five was working too quickly to make sense of anything he was doing, and Diego could only hope he remembered how unfocused they’d been at 13. If he started giving them the muddled, aloof quantum bullshit he’d come back spewing, they weren’t going to get far.

“A hasty attempt to translate my knowledge of you idiots into quantum mechanics to achieve the maximum probability of achieving something with this,” Five muttered. “Speaking of which, when did you have your first girlfriend?”

“How does that matter?!”

“In probability this complex, _ everything _ matters.”

Diego groaned. Five had been asking absurd questions all morning. Either he really needed those answers, or he’d finally lost it. “I was seventeen. I’d just moved out and--”

“I don’t need details.”

It was difficult not to punch him in his smug little face. He couldn’t even make eye contact while being a dick?

“Why are you writing all these on the worst possible paper?” Klaus mumbled, watching as Five tore another piece of paper into shreds before scribbling onto the remains.

“Well,” Five said, as he worked, “because if I was in danger, I’m sure you’d all rush to do whatever it takes.” He gave them a shit-eating smile, rolling the paper up and tossing it into the pile. “I’m going to bake these and pretend I’m stuck in the past and I need help or something of the sort.” He shrugged. “Probably best to be brief, leave it to the imagination.”

“Why the past?” Diego asked.

“Because it comes with fewer questions,” Five said, his tone painfully suggestive.

“What’s this one?” Klaus asked, reaching for the only proper envelope in the pile.

Five quickly slapped his hand away. “ _ That _ is the end of this ‘treasure hunt.’ A minimal explanation of what’s  _ really _ happening. It’s not for you.”

“But now I really want to  _ read _ it,” Klaus whined.

Five snatched the envelope and a handful of the scraps up and vanished with a flash.

“Jeez, touchy,” Klaus said. “What’s with him this time?”

Diego wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but he did have a hunch. “Do you think we’ll remember our new lives?” he asked. “I mean, is he writing a letter he’s sure we, the people we are now, will never see?”

“Wow,” Klaus said, then gasped. “Oh my god I bet it’s really sappy. He’s  _ embarrassed! _ ”

“Yeah, or he knows we’re still capable of giving him a good punch in the face,” Diego muttered.

Five reappeared. “Now, I’m trying to create multiple routes so that even if you stumble off the path - which I’m sure you will - you’ll still find what you need. The clues won’t work without Vanya, so they’ll have to include her, spend some time working with her as part of the team before they find out about her powers. Then, if they don’t figure it out themselves, my final letter should give them the information they need about how to train her.”

“What about Dad?” Allison asked.

“I said I had secrets about him that he can’t know about,” Five said. “Which isn’t exactly a lie. And I figure at least one of you must be smart enough to know not to go straight to Dad about Vanya when he clearly didn’t handle her powers very well.”

“I don’t see how this is much better than Dad killing himself,” Luther muttered. “I mean, we’re still lying to them to…” He waved his hand. “You know.”

“Well,” Five said, with what he probably thought was restraint. Diego wasn’t sure if he was just higher strung lately or if he’d just forgotten how to hide the constant urge to stab them. “ _ I’m  _ actually giving you instructions instead of just skipping out on life without telling my kids  _ anything _ about what was coming or how I knew about it…”

“Really?” Diego scoffed. “And you told them allllll about the apocalypse, did you?”

“Not in so many words,” Five said, with a look that warned how severely they were testing his patience. “But I said enough that they’ll understand. Trust me.”

Allison sighed. “You’re sure Vanya will find your first clue?”

“Yes,” Five said. An oddly sentimental look flashed across his face for a moment before he made it disappear. “She said she made me a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich every single night after I disappeared. Since I’m the only one in this household who likes peanut butter--”

“-- it’s just too much work to  _ swallow _ \--”

“-- Vanya will be the one who finds the clue taped to the bottom of one of the peanut butter jars.”

“That seems kind of risky, doesn’t it?” Diego said. “I mean, what if she doesn’t notice? Or if Mom finds it while cleaning? Or if we knock it over--”

“The timeline is chaos,” Five said, leaning onto the table with both hands. “All of these changes are going to be risky. But I’ve calculated the probability that they’ll learn their lessons, read my letter, and fix Vanya, and it’s not going to get any higher.”

“How high is it?” Allison asked.

“Probably about 70 percent,” Five said.

“That’s barely more than two thirds,” Klaus pointed out.

“I’m well aware,” Five snapped. “But this is all we’ve got. So, we place the clues, then I’m going to take us back to roughly the same time I appeared the first time, give or take.”

“Give or take?”

“Time travel is a crapshoot with one person, not to mention seven. You might arrive at slightly different times, depending on where and how far apart your future selves are. Shouldn’t be more of a difference than 24 hours, though. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve made an itemized list of where each of these goes.  _ Don’t _ paraphrase my instructions, these clues need to be placed  _ exactly _ the way I described them, understood?”

Klaus nodded while Diego took the notebook and held it so that the rest of them could also see. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll place a handful of them myself,” Five said. “And then I’m going to get some sleep so I don’t pass out trying to get you all forward. I don’t know what happens if I pass out mid-time travel, and I’m not eager to find out.”

Diego nodded. At some point, all this had gotten too weird to even try to point out more issues with it. “Right. We should probably avoid that.”

“Probably,” Five said, sweeping some of the scraps into his hand and stuffing it in his jacket. “Don’t screw this up.” With that, he was gone.

Allison gave them all an exasperated look that Diego felt in every bone in his body.

“He is such an angry old man,” Klaus remarked.

**

When Five slept, he usually dreamed about his family. In the apocalypse, it had been about them dying, or about them being perfectly alive and well and just out of reach. Now that he was back with them, he mostly dreamed of the empty wasteland.

It was extremely bizarre to wake up to someone touching him. Delores had never woken him, not even during his nightmares. She probably knew how hard it was for him to get to sleep at all.

“Allison says not much longer before Dad wakes,” Ben whispered. “Depending on how her rumor was interpreted.”

His hand was still on Five’s elbow, and Five quickly shook it off. Klaus’ ridiculous babble about how he needed Ben was still stuck at the back of his head. He’d missed Ben, yes, but it had been 45 years since they’d actually talked. He didn’t need Ben, if only because Ben didn’t know him anymore.

Stupid time dilation. All of them still acted as though he was still 13, as though he hadn’t lived a lifetime since they’d last seen him.

“Sure,” he said. “Did you bring coffee?”

“Of course,” Ben said, handing over the cup.

Five chugged it. He was exhausted just from the  _ thought _ of what he was about to do.

“This much caffeine probably isn’t good for you,” Ben said. “You should at least pace yourself.”

“Transporting seven people 17 years forward in time isn’t good for me either, but so it goes,” Five said, draining the cup and setting it aside. “I’m going to go eat something.”

He considered jumping down to the kitchen, but he didn’t want to waste any energy. He honestly wasn’t entirely sure he was over last time. He walked down the stairs with a sigh. Allison was already there with a plate of sandwiches. “Thought you might need them,” she said.

Five was tired of being told what he needed by everyone, but in this case there was no argument to be had. He took the plate and tried to eat as much as possible.

He was almost full before Klaus skidded into the room. “Dad’s stirring, we should go.”

“Mom says she’ll distract him for a few minutes if he wakes up, but she says not to expect more than that,” Diego added, right behind Klaus.

“Is Luther getting Vanya?” Allison asked.

“Yeah,” Luther said, carrying the unconscious girl after them. “Five, are you sure you’re ready?”

Five set down the plate and stood, extending his hands on both sides. “As I’ll ever be,” he muttered. He looked at the ground so they couldn’t see him grimace. This wasn’t going to be pleasant, but he didn’t need them whining about it on his behalf. “Hold on tight to each other. Once we get back, just try to figure out what’s changed and get in touch with everyone.”

He wasn’t sure where he’d be. If he’d averted the apocalypse, then chances were he’d jumped straight into the future and rejoined his siblings as a 13 year old. That might mean that if he were to superimpose himself on the nearest version of himself, he would only land about a week later in front of the Academy instead of at the same time as his siblings, but it was luck of the draw now.

He took a deep breath, concentrated on the right equations, and pulled.

**

Vanya felt the moment she stopped playing, but it still took her a moment to catch up. She felt faint, and all of this seemed off. Earlier, she had been playing at a concert - it was hard to remember anything but how caught up she’d been in her thoughts even while playing. Allison had been there, and there had been a moment of happiness - Allison, her sister, proud of her, there in the audience - and then…

It wasn’t a concert now. This was definitely a recital in an empty amphitheater. The conductor was staring at her. The silence around her was deafening. “I have to go,” she choked out, running before the panic could take hold. She dashed outside and into the nearest bathroom, splashing water on her face.

She’d killed Allison, and then she’d killed Leonard - no, Howard… Harold… whatever - and then she’d gone home… Or no, she hadn’t killed Allison, but they  _ had _ locked her up. Allison had asked them to let her go with a notepad, despite the fact that Vanya was the reason she was mute. And she’d been ignored, and Vanya had been stuck in that  _ place _ , and then…

God, she’d brought it all down. Her heartbeat had been deafening and the power was like a whirlwind. She’d brought the whole thing down. She sobbed. She’d killed Pogo, she’d destroyed their home - she’d never wanted this. As much as it hurt to be an outsider in her own home, as  _ angry _ she had been, as much as she’d wanted them to take everything back, she’d never wanted to destroy it all…

She stopped trying to calm herself with the cold water and let it run while she wept into her hands. She couldn’t remember what had happened after the Academy had crumbled. Had her siblings still been in there? She had a dreamlike recollection of seeing them, but had it been before or after? Had she attacked them? Had she killed them like she’d kill Pogo?

The door slammed open, and she jumped, rushing to try to appear less like a crazy person weeping in the bathroom. It was accurate, but she didn’t know what would happen if she was surrounded by people now.

Helen closed the door behind herself and looked at Vanya.

That didn’t seem right either. Vanya was pretty sure Leonard had mentioned getting rid of her. Maybe he’d lied, or…

“Are you alright?” Helen asked. “I’ve never seen you so rattled.”

Vanya wanted to laugh. She’d spent most of her life feeling like an anxious bug squashed under the shoe of life. It was probably just surprising she’d never stuttered and run off before now. She reached for her medication on impulse, but it was nowhere to be found. Leonard had probably gotten rid of her refill. “I didn’t think you knew my name,” she said weakly.

Helen gave her a thoroughly bewildered look. “Are you hurt?” she asked. “You seemed fine earlier but now…” She grimaced, reaching for the door. “I think I should take you to the hospital.”

“No,” Vanya said. “No, no hospital. I’m fine, I’ve just had a long week.” She wanted to go home, try to sleep or think or  _ something _ . She had no idea what came next.

“Vanya, you ran out in the middle of rehearsal and you just said you didn’t think I know your name,” Helen said, as though both of those were monumentally absurd things. 

Vanya tried to come up with a suitable response, but nothing came out. “I’m just… I should go home. I’m not feeling well.”

Helen strode forward, probably to feel her forehead for a fever, but the move was so unexpected that Vanya found herself backing up and pushing Helen away. Helen was pushed back, but it wasn’t by Vanya’s hand.

“Shit,” Vanya said, heart leaping into her throat. She almost didn’t dare look if she’d hurt Helen, but she stayed deathly still, watching as Helen stumbled, but quickly righted herself.

She pursed her lips at Vanya like this was par for the course.“Vanya, we’ve talked about this,” Helen said. “You don’t use your powers on me when you’re upset. Now whether you like it or not, something is clearly going on with you and you have to see a doctor.”

Vanya raised her hand to stare at it. She hadn’t ever managed such a gentle push. It had always been a storm of power all at once. It had only come naturally when it was roaring to the point that Vanya didn’t feel like she was doing it at all - it just happened. Now it had come just as easily, but in a small ebb that was easy to revoke.

There was something poking out from under her sleeve. She pushed the sleeve up, swallowing hard when she saw what it was.

An umbrella tattoo.

“Oh my god,” Vanya whispered. “I don’t need a hospital, I have to talk to my sister.”

**

One second, Diego was holding onto Luther’s arm, the next he was elsewhere and someone was talking to him. He tried to orient himself, looking around. “Come again?” he said.

“The Murphy case,” Chuck Beaman repeated, waving a file in his face. He paused when he took a better look at Diego’s face. “You feeling okay? You’re not looking great.”

Diego blinked at him. “Uh,” he managed. “I… don’t know.”

“Jesus, Hargreeves, go home if you’re sick. How many times has Eudora told you that?”

Diego managed a noncommittal laugh. He had no idea what was going on, but since nothing made sense, it probably meant that they’d successfully changed things. He just had no idea what they’d changed or if they were the  _ right  _ things. “Yeah, sure, yeah, I’m… you caught me. I am… so sick. I will go home.”

Beaman raised a brow. “Hargreeves,” he warned, before he sighed, like it wasn’t his problem. “Just go home for real this time, alright?” He waved a hand at him, turning away without another word. 

“Okay,” Diego murmured to himself as he backed away, making for the exit before anyone noticed he had no idea what he was doing here. He was halfway to the door when he saw Klaus. He was hard to miss. His outfit looked like he’d actually bought it with actual money instead of digging it out of the trash, but he’d ruined any kind of reasonable tailoring with an ungodly amount of color and glitter. “Shit.”

Klaus whirled around, giving him a helpless look that conveyed the same confusion Diego felt. Diego groaned and joined Klaus at the desk where he was seated across from a police officer. “Uh, hey there,” he said, awkwardly. He wasn’t wearing his usual outfit - instead, he was wearing a casual suit. “Is my brother under arrest?”

“Yes, good question,” Klaus said, squinting at the officer. “ _ Am _ I?”

“Ha-ha, you’re hilarious,” the officer said.

Diego and Klaus both stared at him long and hard. 

“Okay but like,” Klaus started, finally, “could you just humor us and answer the question?”

The officer frowned like wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be concerned. “No. You’re not under arrest, Mr. Hargreeves.”

“Cooooooool,” Klaus said, very slowly getting out of his chair. “Then we will just be going.”

“Sure,” the officer said. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Klaus laughed, and then started towards the door backwards at an alarming pace. Diego rushed after him to turn him around, but he didn’t slow down either.

“What are you wearing?” he hissed into Klaus’ ear.

“I don’t know!”

“It looks like you stole a business man’s suit and then got into a paintball fight.”

“I know, it’s kind of great,” Klaus said, before returning to the same level of bewilderment as Diego. “What the fuck  is going  _ on? _ And if I’m this confused, how am I not hig?!”

**

Ben found himself at a desk. He was no longer thirteen, but Klaus was also nowhere to be seen. He looked around. It was a nice office, full of books and with a large chalkboard, full of equations he didn’t understand. He leaned over the desk. There was a plaque reading “Dr. Ben Hargreeves.”

“I have a doctorate,” he whispered into the silence. “What the hell?”

Ah. Silence.

Ben grinned. It had been a long time since he’d had any of that. Klaus even  _ slept _ loud. He leaned back in his chair and spun a few times before he remembered it was time to get back to business.

That he could, in fact, get down to business without waiting for Klaus to crawl out of a drugged coma. God, that was a fun thought.

Still, it was probably time to find Klaus. He looked around the office for clues before his eyes finally landed on a book. It had been propped up where he could see it, and it had all his siblings’ faces on the cover.

THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY - LIFE IN THE HARGREEVES FAMILY.

Ben picked it up slowly, opening it to the first page. 

_ Dedicated to Number Five, wherever or whenever he may be. We hope you see this someday _ , it read.

“Huh,” Ben murmured to himself. “This’ll probably answer a few questions.” He looked up, half expecting a belligerent retort from Klaus.

Instead, there was only silence.

**

“Mooooooooom,” came a familiar voice. “Wake uuuuuuup, it’s past breakfast tiiiiiiime.”

Allison sat up ramrod straight. “Claire,” she breathed. “Oh my god,  _ Claire _ .” She snatched up her daughter quickly and squeezed her. “God, I’m so happy to see you sweetie.”

“It was only the weekend, Mom,” Claire said, though she giggled slightly. “Don’t be gross!”

“The weekend,” Allison said, releasing Claire. “Right. Yes. How was… Dad’s weekend?” It was a wild guess, but it was the most likely.

“It was okay,” Claire said, diplomatically. “But Dad doesn’t make me pancakes for breakfast, wake uuuuup Moooooom.”

“Alright, alright sweetie, Mom’s coming,” she said, rolling out of bed.

“You should hurry before Spaceboy burns the pancakes,” Claire informed her.

“Space boy?” Allison asked. “Is your Uncle Luther here?”

“You said I shouldn’t call him Uncle because he’s different,” Claire said wrinkling her nose.

“Right,” Allison said. She and Luther had quietly stopped calling each other brother and sister when they were eight and starting to realize that maybe there were several kinds of affection people could have for each other, but they’d never talked about it with anyone else. Something was off. 

For now, she had to play along, hope answers came to her down the line. They  _ had _ expected to arrive into a different present, after all. “Sorry. Yes. Mommy’s still a little sleepy.” She let Claire drag her along, if only because she had never been in this house before. It was smaller than her old one had been.

She followed Claire to the kitchen, where Luther was looking at her helplessly, holding a pan and a bowl of what looked like pancake batter. In the background, the TV was going quietly. “Hi, Allison,” he said. He looked as confused as she did, and Allison didn’t know if that was good or bad. “And Claire. I am… not sure what I’m doing.”

“ _ Trying _ to make pancakes,” Claire said.

Allison nodded. “Here, let me.” She took the pan and batter and started the pancakes.  _ What’s happening? _ She mouthed. Luther shrugged helplessly.

The phone rang. “Let me just… get that.” She wavered for a moment between the phone and the pan before handing the pan to Luther. “Just… put it on a plate in a minute or so.” She reached over to grab the phone. “Hello?”

_ “Hey, Allison, it’s Helen. _ ”

“Hi,” Allison said. Clearly this was someone she was supposed to know, and from the tone probably pretty well, but she couldn’t think of a single Helen she was close to. “What’s up?” She cringed, hoping it didn’t sound too out of place for whatever this was.

“ _ Sorry, I know it’s still pretty early there and it’s your week with Claire, but Vanya seems pretty sick. She ran out of practice and she just seems antsy. She seemed to think I barely know her, too. I tried to take her to the hospital, but she insisted I should call you instead.” _

_ “ _ Right, yes, of course,” Allison said, breathing a sigh of relief despite herself. Vanya was okay, and aware enough to think to call her. That was a good start. “Is she there? Is she okay?”

“ _ Yes, she’s with me. Allison, you sound pretty worked up too, is everything alright? _ ”

“I… yeah,” Allison said. She had no idea who this was or why she was with Vanya, if she even  _ was _ with Vanya. “Everything’s…” She paused as the TV’s droning filtered back into her attention. The news was on, and she stepped forward so she could see the attached picture. “Everything’s just really weird today,” she said, “because…” She swallowed. “Well, because our dad just died.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's okay to ignore your update schedule when you've broken a number of kudos divisible by 50 right? Right?!
> 
>  
> 
> I'm a disaster. I'll be here SOMETIME next week, I guess. With more of the Hargreeves siblings fumbling to figure out who they are now (and what not-dead-dead people they're dating.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna wait at least one more day before calling it "close enough to a week what is time anyway" but then in attempt to distract myself from posting too often (there's only so long I can keep up this tempo honestly) I worked on another story and finished a chapter of that, thereby putting myself in a position where I have 2 edited chapters for 2 fics and not enough self control to slam dunk them into the internet for validation.
> 
> However, the other one is a gift for a friend, so I have to stay strong for that one. So... here it is. Also, this chapter is actually half of one chapter that just got really long, which is why it doesn't progress the plot too much. (There is a plot out there, I've got a plan.)

“My keys don’t work,” Diego muttered, after trying the last key on the ring and getting nothing.

“Maybe you don’t live here anymore,” Klaus replied. 

Diego sighed. “Yeah, I’m starting to think so too.”

“Hey!” 

They both started at the voice. Diego groaned. “My landlord, Al,” he muttered to Klaus. “Hi there--”

“He does look like an Al alright,” Klaus mumbled to himself.

The surly old man wasn’t swayed by Diego’s smile. Clearly in this life, he had never seen Diego. “You got a warrant?”

“A warrant?” Diego and Klaus chimed at once. 

Diego pulled aside his coat, revealing a clear badge. “Oh,” he muttered. “Uh, no. I uh…” He made a face that made it all too clear that he had already realized this wasn’t going to work, but it was too late to stop. “... used to live here?”

“You think I’m an idiot?” The man was tiny, and that seemed to make him even angrier. “At least come up with a good story. You want in my storage closet, you come back with a warrant.”

“Right,” Diego said. “Look, would you mind--”

“ _ Out!” _

Diego made a face like he’d really love to punch cranky old Al and kick down the door just for the principle, but he grabbed Klaus’ arm and dragged them both out. “Ha,” Klaus said as Diego dragged him to the car, not sure what else there was to say. This was not, per se, the weirdest thing he’d ever experienced, but it might have been the weirdest thing he’d experienced while sober. “Your place is a storage closet.”

“Shut up.”

Klaus reached over to grab his badge. “You’re a  _ cop _ ! Wooow.”

Diego slapped his hand away. “We need to figure out where I do live,” he muttered. “I guess I could go back to the precinct and try to wheedle it out of Beaman…”

“I’m just spitballing here,” Klaus said. “But I assume you have a driver’s licence?”

Diego blinked at him, then scrambled to find a wallet.

“Wow, being sober is  _ great _ ,” Klaus whispered to himself. “I should do this all the time. Though, I do want a drink.”

“Klaus,” Diego warned, rifling through his wallet. There was actually cash in it, which was rare for them. For being the children of a disgustingly rich man, Allison was the only one who actually had any money to show for it.

“Oh my god I could buy so much weed with that money…” Klaus said. “Weed is pretty chill, you know. I mean, I know it’s a gateway drug and all, buuut...”

“You are not getting high,” Diego said, finally pulling out his driver’s license. “Got it?”

Klaus groaned. “Okay, okay,  _ fine _ .” He sighed and looked around. There was a lady with a bloody face in the corner of the alley behind a dumpster. He waved at her. She gave him only a somber look in return. He whined theatrically at Diego. “Man, the dead are such a  _ bummer _ .”

“221 West Avenue,” Diego muttered. He frowned. “Okay, I think I know where that is. Get in the car.”

“You know, you could spare some time to think about what I’m going through,” Klaus said, though he didn’t particularly care. He opened the passenger door and jumped into the car. “Ooh, do you think you live in an actual house _ , officer? _ ”

“Shut up,” Diego muttered.

**

Ben had gotten through the first chapter of their book by the time someone knocked on his door. His first impulse was to ignore it and keep reading, before he realized that his presence actually counted as a presence. “Come in!” he called.

A total stranger opened the door, coming inside and shutting the door behind him. “Hey, Ben,” he said. From his suit, Ben guessed he was another professor. “Reading that thing again?”

Ben looked at the book. “Yeah. Feeling nostalgic, I guess,” he said, smiling. He had no idea what this guy’s name was, and that would probably be a problem if they were friends.

“Then I take it you’ve heard the news?” the professor said.

Ben closed the book, frowning. “What news?”

“Oh,” the professor said, grimacing sympathetically. “Sorry, I guess I jumped the gun there. I just saw it on the news. It’s…” He sighed. “It’s your dad.”

**

“So, if you could just take her for a weekend, maybe the week…” Allison found herself pleading.

“ _ Hey, Allison, it’s fine, _ ” Patrick said. Allison hadn’t heard him be so casual about Claire in years.

“Really?” Allison said. She wanted to cry with relief. “I’m so sorry, I know I should be with Claire, but--”

“ _ It’s your Dad, _ ” Patrick said. “ _ I get it. I know you had a rough relationship with him, but I know it must be hard. _ ”

“Yeah,” Allison said. “And my family is… kind of crazy, so I just…”

“ _ Don’t worry. I’ve got Claire. Your family is more than enough for you to manage. Who knows, maybe I’ll even figure out how to make pancakes. _ ”

“So you can be the favorite parent?” Allison joked, resting her head against the wall. It had been so long since she’d actually had a conversation with Patrick. They’d started growing apart not long after Claire was born - she’d been unexpected, and more commitment than they’d really signed up for, but they were willing to put that aside for the unborn baby. Once Claire had been born, though, it was obvious that just wanting the best for their daughter wasn’t enough to stay together.

So Allison had heard a little  _ rumor _ that Patrick still loved her. It had fixed things up until Patrick had realized that Allison was solving all her problems with Claire like that. Maybe he’d put it together. Maybe her rumor just wasn’t strong enough to force love on someone when they’d seen what she was willing to do to their daughter.

It seemed that in this world, she’d let Patrick go when it was time, and it had been better for all of them. She swallowed hard. 

“ _ Well, Claire does respond well to bribery _ ,” Patrick teased. “ _ Allison, it’s going to be okay. Just drop her off with me and catch your plane, we’ll be here when you get back. _ ”

“Thank you so much,” Allison choked out, before she could start crying. “I promise I’ll call as soon as I know when I can be back.”

“ _ Alright, _ ” Patrick said softly. “ _ See you soon. _ ”

“See you,” Allison croaked, putting down the phone and trying to cry quietly.

“Was he okay with it?” Luther asked.

Allison nodded, trying desperately to wipe away her tears before Claire saw.

“Alright. I got some plane tickets for tonight,” Luther said, pulling her in for a hug. “And Claire’s packing up her own things. She’s a sweet girl. Takes after her mom.”

Allison sobbed. “I screwed up my life so bad,” she whispered. “I just wanted to be a good mom and…”

“It’s alright,” Luther said, running his hand through Allison’s hair. “You didn’t have a lot of good parenting to go off of.”

Allison nodded with a choked whimper.

“How’s Vanya?” Luther asked.

“Okay,” Allison sniffled. “I told her we changed time and to just try to lay low until we can talk in person. I think she’s kind of in shock.”

“I get that,” Luther said. “It’s so weird not knowing what’s going on. I mean…” He gestured at his own reasonably sized body. “I should be on the moon now, and yet here I am with you.” He hesitated. “I wish I remembered how that happened.”

“Me too,” Allison said.

“Mooooooom I can’t find my sweaterrrrrr,” Claire called from the bedroom.

Allison wiped her face dry and put on a smile. “Coming, sweetie!”

**

Vanya put down the phone and took a deep breath. Now that she was paying attention, she could see that Helen’s apartment was littered with pictures of the two of them. Of Vanya and Helen with Vanya’s siblings and with what appeared to be Helen’s parents. 

Allison hadn’t said much - mostly had checked if she was okay. Vanya wanted to be annoyed. A niggle voice in the back of her head warned that maybe Allison’s promise to talk in person was just a way to trap Vanya again, but something about the way Allison had talked indicated that she was just as confused.

And Allison had been honest with her at every turn. In fact, if she hadn’t given away to Vanya that she was gearing up to rumor her, Vanya would have never hurt her.

Vanya rubbed her hands over her face. Allison did deserve to be heard out, no matter how Vanya felt about her family. She wasn’t even sure what she  _ did _ feel about her family at the moment.

She stared one of the pictures on the mantel. There was Vanya, in between Helen and Allison, smiling. They weren’t in the Academy, but it seemed as though they’d stolen the painting of Five, because Klaus was leaning on it and grinning. Diego was beside him with a woman Vanya didn’t recognize. And Luther… Luther had his hand on Allison’s shoulder, looking young and peaceful. Like he was actually enjoying himself for once.

Helen. Helen was in a photo with her family. Clearly she knew them, knew  _ Vanya _ well enough. 

“Can I ask a weird question?” Vanya asked.

“Sure,” Helen said, careful. She’d been sitting in the airchair staring at Vanya since Vanya had gotten on the phone with Allison. She looked pinched, sort of like someone might if they suspected they were staring at someone with some kind of traumatic memory loss and they had no idea what to say about it.

“How much do you know about my family?” She’d known about Vanya’s powers, so clearly she had to know they were different. Not to mention it was hard to meet her siblings without noticing they were  _ very _ different.

“Is this about your Dad?” Helen asked. “Because I know he was awful, but him dying must be--” She visibly wavered over the idea of saying  _ clearly shocking enough to make you forget what seem to be key memories of your life _ and then resorting instead to a strangled, “--difficult.”

“No,” Vanya said. “I mean… I mean…” She took a deep breath. “My brother Five. Do you know about him?”

Helen sat up at that. “Yes,” she said, slowly. “Why?”

“So you know he’s a time traveler?” Vanya asked.

Helen nodded. “Why are you asking about that  _ now _ ? Did he leave a new note or something?”

Vanya shook her head. “I’m from a different timeline than the Vanya you remember,” she said. It sounded insane, but Helen raised her eyebrows more like she just wanted more details. “In my world, I’ve one or two conversations with you. I basically only knew you as the first chair.”

“But  _ you’re _ the first chair,” Helen said.

Vanya frowned. “I don’t remember that either. I mean, I do, I was first chair, but only because I had a boyfriend who was actually a villain with a grudge against my family and I’m pretty sure he murdered you.”

Helen stared at her. “Oh,” she said. “Wait, are you saying you  _ dated _ Harold?” 

Vanya blinked. “You know him?”

“When we started dating, you warned me he might be trouble,” Helen said. “You didn’t mention the dating, but… I assume the previous you didn’t… know about that.”

“Oh,” Vanya said. “Did  _ I _ know him?”

Helen shook her head. “You said your brother warned you about him.”

“Right.” Five must have left something behind. All Allison had said was that they’d been back to change things, but… She frowned, looking at Helen. “ _ We’re _ dating?”

Helen’s face was unreadable. “Yes,” she said, as if to a child. Then she paused. “Oh no. You still think you’re straight, don’t you.”

Vanya shrugged. She hadn’t spent much time thinking about her sexuality. She’d had enough to make her feel like an outsider already. “I guess.”

“You’re not,” Helen informed her. “Trust me on that. We’ve been living together for three years, and before that we really went through…” She looked like she was trying to be polite and it was killing her, “... a lot of contemplation on that one.”

Vanya looked around. This place was so much cleaner than her old apartment. “Oh.”

Helen sighed. “Can I help somehow? I can tell you about how we met. Oh, and I have your book.”

“I still wrote it?” Vanya asked, glancing down at her tattoo. She didn’t get why should would have if she’d felt more included. The book had just been a way to feel like she’d actually been a part of the family. Trying to find her place in the strange place between being a Hargreeves and not being in the Umbrella Academy.

“Yeah,” Helen said. “Let me get it for you.” She stood up, leaving Vanya to trace the tattoo with her hand. A moment later she returned with the book.

Except it wasn’t the same book. When Vanya looked at the back, it wasn’t just her face. It was all six of them, together. “We  _ all _ wrote it,” she said. She swallowed. It wasn’t  _ fair _ to know that she’d lived this life and not remember it. To have only the memories of isolation present. She sniffled.

“I know in your mind - or in your life - we’re not together,” Helen said, sitting down and placing her hand on Vanya’s shoulder. She looked incredibly awkward doing it, which was somehow more comforting right now. Allison’s warnings about things being too perfect had come back with a vengeance. It was a relief to see that Helen didn’t know what to do either. “But I am here for you.”

“Okay,” Vanya said. “I mean, my last relationship turned out to be a ruse by an ex-convict, but…”

Helen sighed. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, dating you has never been easy. I’m prepared to put in the effort.”

Vanya sniffled again. “Thanks,” she managed, before bursting into tears.

**

Diego sighed as he finally pulled up in front of what had to be his actual home. It was an apartment building, but a nice one. Definitely not what Diego was used to. He turned off the car and sighed. “Okay, let’s try this again,” he said.

“Sure, sure,” Klaus said. “Have you realized cars are death traps? So many dead people...”

“Come  _ on _ , Klaus.”

“Coming,” Klaus said, racing after Diego as he hurried up to the stairs. 

He had to try every key on the ring -  _ again _ \- but eventually he had the apartment building door open. 

“You  _ do _ live here!” Klaus gasped. “Wow. Snazzy place.” He whirled as if allowing someone out the door, waving at thin air. “Hi.”

Diego gave him a look, and Klaus groaned. “Seriously? She was dead too? She seemed like a nice old lady.” He turned around to lean over the empty stairs to the building. “My condolences about your death, I hope it was very peaceful. Oh, really? Good to hear. No, I do not know your grandson..”

“Klaus,” Diego snapped, dragging him inside.

“Sorry, I have to go, have a pleasant afterlife Mrs. Johnson!” Klaus called.

“Stop chatting with the dead people,” Diego said. “We need to get to a phone and call the others.”

“I would love to, trust me, but they are  _ so _ chatty,” Klaus said.

Diego ignored him, climbing the steps to look for the correct apartment. He only had to try three keys this time before the door opened.

“You are in so much trouble,” said a voice from inside the apartment. He would know that voice anywhere.

Diego dropped his keys. “Oh my god,” he choked out. “Y-You… You’re alive.”

“Oh thank  _ god _ ,” Klaus whispered under his breath. “That would have been  _ so  _ awkward…”

Eudora raised her brows, stepping in front of them her eyes crossed. “Seriously? You’re really going to try that? The Murphy case is not that big and you know it! I told you not to work overtime if you don’t feel well, and Beaman called me to say--”

“W-What?” Diego said. He honestly couldn’t care less about what was going on, because Eudora Patch was standing before him, alive and well. He wanted to rush forward and hug her, but his feet were rooted to the ground. He was almost scared that if he tried to touch her, she would vanish.

“Klaus,” she said severely. “What’s the cover story this time?”

Klaus laughed uncomfortably. “I don’t really… know you. I mean I’ve seen you, but I don’t--”

“Are you both  _ high?  _ This is so much worse than your usual--”

Diego finally pulled himself out of his stupor, ignoring Klaus’ whispered, “God I wish,” and closed the distance between them, pulling her into a crushing hug.

“Okay, seriously, I will kick your ass,” Eudora said, though her tone softened.

“That’s okay,” Diego said.

“Hey,” Eudora said, taking his shoulders and pushing him back so she could look at his face. “Are you actually serious? You’re honestly relieved that I’m  _ alive?  _ What the hell happened?”

“How crazy would it sound if I said time travel?” Diego asked.

“Time travel,” Eudora echoed. She stared at him for a good long while. “You mean Number Five is back?”

Diego gaped at her. “It’s r-re… rea--”

“It’s such a long story it’s insane,” Klaus interjected, as though he knew it was going to take a  _ while _ for Diego to get some actual words out.

Eudora looked back and forth between them. “Okay. Why don’t we all sit down?”

**

Klaus sighed. He’d left Diego to have some time alone with his girlfriend to answer all her questions. She was so  _ very  _ thorough. He sat back on the couch and sighed. Thankfully, there didn’t appear to be any dead people here. God, he was so sober. It  _ sucked _ .

He sat up suddenly. If he was sober, he could probably talk to Dave. 

“Oh my god,” he said, laughing. “Dave!” The silence stretched on, feeling stuffier with every moment. “Dave?”

He paused. “Ben?” he tried.

No response. Hopefully that meant Ben was alive somewhere.

“Heyyyy, Dave,” Klaus said. “It’s me, Klaus. If you’re out there…” He reached for the dog tags to try to remind himself of their connection but it took him only moments to realize that he wasn’t wearing any.

“Oh,” he said. “Right.” He’d gone to the past not long after Diego’s girlfriend had died, and she was still alive, meaning… He stood up, wandering back to the kitchen. He knew Diego would probably tell him to fuck off, but Ben wasn’t around and Klaus didn’t want to make this realization alone. He teetered over to Diego, trying to blink back tears. “I never met Dave.”

Diego paused in the middle of his sentence. “Huh?”

“I never went back to 1968 in this timeline, and I haven’t met Dave, so he’s not responding when I try to call him,” Klaus said. He was crying now and there was no going back.

“Wait, who’s Dave?” Eudora asked.

“His… boyfriend,” Diego supplied. “Uh, he jumped back to the Vietnam war after escaping the psychopaths who killed you and fell in love there.”

“That sounds like Klaus, yes,” Eudora said, remarkably put together for someone who clearly knew how crazy all this sounded. “So, what’s the problem?”

“I didn’t meet him, so he doesn’t know me, so he’s not showing up when I try to conjure him,” Klaus sobbed. “And I’m  _ so sober _ right now it hurts!”

Eudora made a small noise of sympathetic panic, waving her hand as if to beg him not to cry. Diego’s hand landed on his shoulder. “Wait, wait, what if you found something he still  _ is _ connected to? His grave, maybe?”

“Maybe,” Klaus said, though he had no idea how to go about finding Dave’s grave. He did have family, so maybe…

“Wait one second,” Eudora said, grabbing a phone while she gestured wildly at Diego to comfort Klaus. “What was his full name?”

“David Rutherford,” Klaus sniffled. “He was with the 88th and he died in April of 1969.”

She nodded. Diego patted his back awkwardly. “Hey, we’ll figure this out,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” Klaus managed.

Eudora grabbed a box of tissues and tossed it at Diego, who offered it to Klaus. Klaus took a tissue and let Diego sit him into a chair while he blew his nose. He listened to Eudora repeat what Klaus had told her into the phone and wait. He took another tissue.

_ Can talk to them whenever I want my ass _ , Klaus thought. Even since he’d been back he hadn’t managed to successfully contact Dave once. There was always something. He wanted to give up, get high again and forget about all this.

“Are you sure?” Eudora asked the person on the end of the line. “Well, then can I have an address?” Another pause, during which she scrawled something down on a napkin. “Thank you so much.”

Klaus looked up at her. “You found his grave?”

“No,” Eudora said awkwardly. “I found his address, because he’s not actually dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna do some clever foreshadowing here but then I had to help my mom with quantum physics over text and so my brain no longer works.
> 
> No that's literally not a joke.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I meant to post tomorrow or Monday but I accidentally wove myself into a web of lies on Twitter and now here I am. Also, the insomnia doesn't help. (It's 2 am, but it's cool, that's a great time to post things)

Allison all but leapt out of the taxi as it pulled up in front of Vanya’s new place. She vaguely heard Luther paying, but she was already running up the stairs, looking for the right number. She knocked on the door desperately. Vanya had sounded alright over the phone, but Allison had spent the whole flight over getting more and more jittery. She should have said more, helped more…

The door swung open to show a woman she hoped was the Helen she’d talked to on the phone. “Um, hi,” she said awkwardly. There was no reason to introduce herself if this person knew her, and yet it felt odd not to. “Is Vanya here?”

“Allison,” came Vanya’s voice, and before Helen could answer, Vanya was rushing past to hug Allison. Allison returned the hug, holding her tight. “I’m so sorry.”

“Me too,” Allison said. “We’re _all_ so sorry.”

Vanya squeezed her tighter, the windows rattling with her power. The moment she noticed, she let go of Allison and backed up. “I’m sorry,” Vanya said again, holding her hands up like she feared that if Allison got closer she would get hurt again.

“It’s okay,” Allison said, holding her own hands up in a peace offering. “It was barely a breeze.”

Vanya’s breath came in choppy gasps, but the rattling died down nonetheless.

“Vanya, look,” Allison murmured, stepping closer. “You’re controlling it, see? It’s okay.”

“I don’t want to hurt you again,” Vanya choked out.

“You won’t,” Allison promised. “You might not remember, but in this timeline you know how to control this, and powers… They’re like riding a bike. It’s like muscle memory. Just… stay calm, you’ve got this.”

Vanya tried to breathe, but it wasn’t working very well. The rattling of glasses slipped in and out of focus like the hum of a bee.

“Vanya,” Allison said. “You know how many times we came close to killing each other as kids? It’s alright. You’re my sister, and I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. I’m so sorry about everything, but it’s alright now. We can start again. Just... breathe.”

Vanya managed a large breath in that came out as a sob.

“It’s okay,” Allison murmured. “Breathe. It’s alright.”

She took slow steps closer until she could touch Vanya again, guiding her gently back into a hug. The pictures on the fridge fluttered, then stopped as Vanya returned the hug again, crying into Allison’s shoulder while Allison cried into her hair.

“I’ll just… go… wait in the bedroom…” Helen muttered, tiptoeing out of the living room and closing the door behind her.

“I didn’t mean to,” Vanya sobbed. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I didn’t mean to bring down the building, I didn’t mean to do any of it.”

“I know,” Allison said.

“We all do,” Luther said from the doorway. He looked at Vanya awkwardly, shuffling his feet. “I understand if you don’t want to see me, but I at least wanted to say that I’m sorry too. I should have never locked you away like I did. I just didn’t know what to do.”

Vanya swallowed, jaw clenching in anger. The pictures fluttered again, but another breath and they died down. “You told me it was okay,” she said. “And then you locked me up. You _lied_ to me.”

“I did,” Luther said. “And it was stupid. I get it if you don’t forgive me, but… it was all me. The others… they just went along with it because we were all so shocked. I mean…” He stopped, seeming unsure how to continue without saying something terrible to Vanya again. “It was my problem, not yours. I should have been more understanding. I didn’t think of how you’d feel down there, I just wanted to make sure everyone was safe until I knew what to do.”

“Everyone?” Vanya croaked. “Or the Academy?”

“Everyone,” Luther said, without hesitation. “I thought keeping you contained would… make it easier to figure everything out, but I should have put more thought into how scared you were.”

“Yeah, you should have,” Vanya snapped, then paused, glancing at Allison. “And I should have put more thought into why Allison helped Dad.”

“I didn’t know…” Allison choked out.

“You didn’t,” Vanya said, stepping back. “And I lost it back there because I blamed you for everything he did, even though we were both kids. Plus it’s not like I never went along with the things Dad told me to do, even when it wasn’t right.”

Luther chuckled humorlessly at that. “Yeah, that’s certainly something we can all relate to.” He sighed. “Listen, you don’t have to forgive me, Vanya, but I don’t want you to feel like I don’t think you belong in this family. That wasn’t… I would have never wanted you to feel like that.”

Vanya took a deep breath. “I don’t know if I forgive you yet,” she said. “But I think I will. And I know we _are_ family.”

Luther nodded. “That’s more than fair.”

Vanya looked at Allison. “So if that’s out of the way, I guess we’ve got a funeral to go to, huh?”

Allison shrugged. “Well, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if we missed it.” She laughed humorlessly. “Plus I have a lot of stuff to catch you up on, believe me.”

“We should meet up with the others, though,” Luther pointed out. When they looked at him, he hastily added, “At some point. When you guys are ready. Though at the very least _I_ should go to the Academy to check if Five is there. You guys can both do… whatever you want.”

“We’ll all go,” Vanya said, kneading one hand in the other nervously. “I have some catching up to do, but Allison can explain in the car.”

“You know you don’t have to,” Allison reminded her.

Vanya shook her head. “We should stick together. All of us.” She gave Luther a look. “As long as you don’t lock me in the basement.”

Awkward silence stretched between all three of them. “That’s fair, I deserved that,” Luther said. “I’ll… I’ll just call a cab.”

Vanya looked at Allison, stifling a smile over how uncomfortable Luther looked shuffling away. “I should uh… tell Helen where I’m going,” Vanya said.

“She’s pretty,” Allison said with a grin.

“Okay, hold your horses there,” Vanya said. “First we get the Dad thing sorted out, then you can tease me about my girlfriend that I don’t remember.”

Allison gave her a knowing smile, watching her hurry out of the room to avoid showing how flustered she was.

**

Klaus cleared his throat. “You know what, this is dumb,” he said. “I should go. _We_ should go, find the others...” He turned, but walked straight into Diego’s unyielding arm.

Diego sighed and pushed the doorbell. “Come on, Klaus,” he said. “You’ve been trying to contact him since you came back, and now you’re on his doorstep. At least say hi.”

“But he won’t know who I _am_ ,” Klaus said, but it was too late. The door had opened.

Dave was 40 years older, and yet Klaus was pretty sure he’d recognize him anywhere. He was missing an arm, but otherwise he was in one piece. “Can I help you?” he asked, looking Klaus up and down.

“Hi,” Klaus managed. His clothes were way too much for this. His previous clothes had been mostly stolen or fished out of the trash, but at least they were a moderately tasteful black for the most part instead of… whatever he was wearing now, as flamboyant as it was decently tailored. “You don’t know me.”

“No, I know who you are,” Dave said.

“Really?” Klaus said, nearly collapsing right where he was.

“You’re the medium who goes around talking to murder victims,” he said. “One of those Umbrella kids, right?”

Klaus swallowed. Of course that was what he meant. “Yeah.” He took a moment to register the rest of the sentence. That was useful information, for later, when the whole world wasn’t topsy turvy because Klaus was talking to the love of his life who didn’t know him and was also about 40 years older than him.

“I like reading about your cases in the papers,” Dave said. “I’m not a murder suspect, am I?”

“No,” Klaus said, fighting the urge to run away and get high as a kite and forget all about this. “No, not at all.”

Dave smiled like he knew exactly how nervous Klaus was. He’d always had a knack for knowing that. “Well that’s good, because I don’t remember killing anyone, and I’d be concerned if I was going that senile.”

He was so much like he had been as a young man. Klaus took a deep breath, giving Diego a miserable look. Diego stared back, unyielding. If anything, he was enjoying this. Klaus grimaced and looked back at Dave. “Actually, I am here for a much weirder reason.”

“Weirder than talking to the dead?”

“Yes,” Klaus said, letting out a sound that was as much a laugh as it was a whimper. “So much weirder.”

“Sounds exciting,” Dave replied. “Want to come inside?”

“Uh,” Klaus said, as Diego said, “Yes,” and manhandled him inside.

“Do you mind if I use your phone?” Diego whispered to Dave. “I’m here for moral support, but this is more of a private matter anyway, and I’ve got to uh... call our family. It’s complicated.”

“Yeah, I gathered as much about all… this,” Dave said, gesturing at both of them. “Sure, feel free to sit down on the couch in there, the phone’s on the stand next to it.”

Diego nodded, smiling at Dave. Klaus wanted to punch him in the face. “Let me know if he tries to run, I’ll catch him for you again. He has something very important he needs to say.” He clapped Klaus on the shoulders, smiling like he was goddamn proud of himself. Klaus tried to tell him with his eyes that if killing Diego didn’t mean being stuck with him forever, Klaus _would_.

“Well, alright,” Dave said, looking slightly bewildered but entertained nonetheless. He looked back at Klaus. “Come on, son, I don’t bite.”

“Weell…” Klaus mumbled to himself, stumbling into what looked like a nice little office. He tried to push the thought out of his head. Now was not the time for innuendo. No matter how good the sex had been. In the end, the sex, spectacular as it was, had been a vanishingly small part of why he loved Dave, and it was definitely not the angle he wanted to come at this from.

“Now, what’s this about?” Dave asked.

Klaus cringed. There was no good way to say this. He took a deep breath. “I’m just going to start talking,” he said, “and please don’t interrupt me, because it’s already too much to explain as is and I will run, and Diego will chase me down, and I will hurt him.” He grimaced. “Not because I’m a violent person or anything, he’s just being a dick and… You know what, nevermind, I’m just going to tell you the… things. The things you should know.”

Dave gave him a bemused look. “Alright.”

Klaus sighed and launched into it, doing his best to recount every detail he could recall about meeting Dave as objectively as possible.

Dave watched him thoughtfully for a long time after he’d finished, then hummed. “Well, you weren’t exaggerating. That _is_ weird.” He sat down across from Klaus, squinting at him. “Though you are my type. Or would be, if you were older.”

Klaus laughed despite himself. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you since,” he said. “But I was _way_ too high, and then we kind of time travelled again to change the world so it doesn’t end and now…” he laughed, because anything else he could do sucked too much to try, “you don’t know me anymore.”

“And I’m much too old for you,” Dave teased.

Klaus sniffled. “I mean,” he said, grinning weakly. “I could have a grand-daddy kink.” That was too reductive, but there was no good way to say _you could be a goddamn frog and I’d still love you_ in this situation.

Dave chuckled. “Could you now?”

Klaus felt his lip wobble. “You’re the only person I’ve ever really loved,” he croaked, feeling the tears come again.

Dave sat down on a small sitting couch under the window and patted the spot beside him. “Come here, son,” he said.

Nervously, Klaus obeyed, sitting gingerly beside Dave and letting him pull him closer with an arm around his shoulders. He still smelled the same, though it was mixed with old man smell. “I don’t believe that there’s a single person out there for everyone,” Dave said. “And if you could find love in the damn Vietnam war, you’ll find it again.”

“You really think so?” Klaus asked. His voice quivered.

“I do.”

Klaus sighed. “Doesn’t feel like it. Feels more like you were my one chance and it’s gone now.”

“You’re a fascinating young man,” Dave said, shaking him slightly. “And since I have good taste in men--”

“Debatable.”

“--you’ll snag someone else for sure.”

Klaus looked at him despondently. He didn’t _want_ anyone else. What was wrong with dating someone twice his age if they were the one? It wasn’t like Dave was going to take advantage of Klaus. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. Klaus was some stranger stumbling into his life with a crazy story, and here Dave was talking to him like a friend.

“Tell you what,” Dave said. “I’ll give you my number. You ever feel like you can’t find someone else, you call me up and remind us both how you found _me_ and you can do it again. And when you do find someone, which you will, you can introduce them to me so I can tell you I told you so.”

“That seems a teensy bit awkward,” Klaus said, as Dave wiped away his tears.

“You’ll just tell them I’m your ‘granddaddy’,” Dave said.

Klaus laughed a watery laugh. “Okay,” he said. “I guess… yeah, okay.” It was better than no Dave, that was for sure.

“You can call me anytime,” Dave said. “I live all alone here and I don’t have many hobbies.”

“Except for reading about my cases, clearly,” Klaus joked.

“They are fun,” Dave laughed. “Now get me a pen and paper, my knees aren’t what they used to be.”

Klaus bit back the innuendo at hand and jumped to get a pen and paper. Dave groaned as he reached for it, writing down his number. “Wait, so… am I a detective? I literally don’t remember anything.”

“I believe the cops prefer to call you a consultant. But that’s because they’re jealous,” Dave replied, winking at him.

“Huh,” Klaus said. “In the old timeline I was just a nobody junkie.”

“You were always someone, Klaus,” Dave said, handing over the paper. “But stay sober anyway.”

Klaus smiled. “I’ll do my best, granddaddy,” he said, tucking the paper close to his heart. He sighed. “Look, it’s been a long… long many days that have been months and possibly years and… I just… How do you feel about just one kiss?”

“Alright,” Dave said softly. “One for the road.”

Klaus leaned in, pressing his lips to Dave’s. It felt different, but at the same time it felt just the same. He didn’t want it to ever stop.

A knock on the doorway interrupted him. “Klaus, I hate to interrupt,” Diego murmured. “But we’ve got a situation.”

Klaus straightened up, putting off opening his eyes for as long as he could. “What?”

“Just talked to Luther. Dad’s dead.”

**

Ben rushed up the steps to the Academy, shedding his jacket and running to the living room.

“Oh, thank god,” Allison said. “Ben.”

“What took you so long?” Klaus asked. To the average observer, he probably sounded dramatically scandalized, but Ben knew he was actually worried. “You should have _called_.”

“I took the first flight over,” Ben said. “And I don’t know any of your numbers.”

“Ben,” Vanya breathed, rushing over to hug him.

“Hey,” Ben managed, returning the hug. He’d gotten to greet all his other siblings, but Vanya hadn’t seen him yet, and she’d taken his death hard. He remembered, and he made sure to hug her extra tight.

“I’m so happy to see you,” she whispered.

“Me too,” Ben said. He looked up at the others. “So, Dad?”

“Yeah,” Klaus said. “Not a great sign for our anti-apocalypse campaign, huh?”

“We don’t know how he knew about the apocalypse,” Diego interjected. “I mean, maybe he just knew the date and nothing else, so maybe he didn’t know we’d changed things. And besides, I talked to Mom, she seems normal.”

“If she can administer first aid, he probably didn’t kill himself,” Luther muttered.

“Alright, I think we know what needs to be done,” Klaus said. “Someone has to take one for the team and throw themselves down the stairs to see if she helps. I vote Luther, he can take it.”

Luther rolled his eyes. “But even if she can help, then what? He happened to die on the same day he did in the previous timeline when he _killed himself?_ ”

Klaus sighed. “Fine, fine. I’ll try to conjure him. I’m sober now, so it should work, but… well, he’s still a stubborn old windbag, so…”

“It also depends when Five appears, right?” Ben said. “I mean, if the world _does_ end, he’d have no reason to come back to this date. He’d just jump forward into the future and find us still alive and then just… stay, right? I mean we all jumped into our old bodies, so… Maybe he’d just like… default to the nearest version of himself.”

“Good point,” Diego said. “I think.”  He put his hands on his hips and grimaced at them. “Then I guess we just… sit tight and wait for Five?”

“We might also want to figure out where we can find Harold Jenkins,” Allison suggested. “Just in case.”

“And we have reading to catch up on,” Ben added, extracting himself from Vanya to pull out the autobiography in his pocket. “I’ve only read the part I still remember from being a kid, but this book should have a lot of answers about our lives up to when it was published.”

“And we can ask Helen about things,” Vanya said. “She knows about all this, and she’s willing to help.”

“Helen?” Ben whispered to Klaus.

“Girlfriend she doesn’t remember having,” Klaus whispered back.

Diego nodded fervently. “So does Eudora.”

“The lady cop who died saving my ass,” Klaus whispered.

“Probably Mom, too.”

“I’ll check the surveillance footage,” Allison added, before they could start arguing. “See if he did the same setup as before.”

Luther nodded. “And I’ll see if I can find anything in Dad’s office.”

“You start raving about any monocles this time, I’m gonna kick your ass,” Diego warned.

“Look, this isn’t about Dad anymore,” Luther said. “We just need to find out what’s changed, and Dad’s office might have answers.”

 “Wow, Luther is breaking into Dad’s office and he doesn’t care about Dad. We really are living in an upside down world,” Klaus said. “But, hey, I think we all have our tasks. We’ll all investigate and hope really hard that Five doesn’t appear for another week or two.”

A crack of thunder echoed through the house, a familiar storm of blue light flashing through the windows.

Diego sighed, giving Klaus a pinched look. “You just _had_ to say it, huh.”

Klaus gaped at him. “This is not my fault.”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Allison said, grabbing her jacket to run outside.

**

The thundering storm looked exactly like it did before, and it was right on schedule too. That couldn’t possibly be good.

“Stay behind me,” Luther shouted, spreading his arms.

“Why? We already know what it is this time!” Klaus yelled back over the roaring of the massive blue storm before them.

“We still don’t know if it’s dangerous to stand close to it!”

“Well we’re not going to accidentally fall upwards into it!”

“Klaus, just shut up and stay behind me!”

“Why, because you’re the biggest?!”

“Klaus!” Luther looked back at Klaus just as he heard a thud and the light suddenly vanished. “Shit.”

They all rushed forward at once this time, surrounding Five with no hesitation.

Five made an attempt to push himself off the ground before his arms gave out and he collapsed back into the leaves.

 _“Shit,_ ” Luther said, quickly hauling Five into his lap. Five’s head lolled as Luther eased him up, his lashes not even fluttering at the sensation of being lifted. He was drenched in sweat, cold and clammy to the touch.

Vanya hurried forward and pressed her fingers to Five’s throat, pausing a moment before breathing a sigh of relief. “His pulse is weak but it’s there. He’s alive. But he’s also _freezing_.” She moved to take off her jacket.

“What is he _wearing?_ ” Allison said, reaching for Five’s clothes before Vanya could cover them with her own coat. “Last time he was in a suit.”

Luther looked down. She was right. Five’s clothes were too big for him, like they had been before, but instead of the grey suit, he was wearing a worn sweater and a vest with so many pockets it was almost certain he’d sewn on a few himself. He had a backpack, too, which Ben quickly snatched up.

 “Fuuuuck, those are apocalypse clothes if I’ve ever seen any,” Klaus said.

Vanya draped her coat over Five, and Luther tried to join her by tucking Five under his own coat where hers didn’t cover him. “Okay, look, see what you can find out from his stuff, we’re going to kill two birds with one stone and see if Mom can help him.”

“He has like… twelve guns in here…” Klaus muttered, looking over Ben’s shoulder into the backpacks.

“It’s two,” Ben said.

“We’ll continue this upstairs,” Luther scolded them, letting Vanya push him inside.

She stood on her tiptoes for a moment to look over his shoulder at Five. “He doesn’t look good.”

“I’m getting Mom,” Diego said, taking off at a breakneck speed while Luther clutched Five a little tighter and picked up his own pace.

Luther wasn’t nearly as big as he had been after the serum, but Five was still so small in his arms, about half his height. He carried him upstairs, lowering him into bed with care. Allison was tight on his heels, quickly unlacing Five’s shoes – boots, sturdy ones – and slipping them off. She set them aside and took off the vest as well.

She pulled it to her chest to check it over. “Bullets,” she said. “Uh, granola bars, notes…” She stopped, taking a sharp breath through her teeth. “Oh, shit.”

“What oh shit?” Klaus said, skidding into the room. “Did he croak on us?”

Ben smacked him in the shoulder.

“No,” Allison said. “Worse.” She fumbled with something in one of the pockets before drawing something round and white out and showing it to them. “It’s Harold’s eye.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sigh* LOOK I can't keep posting every 4 days because I WILL die so I'll get on a weekly schedule eventually but maybe not this week.
> 
>  
> 
> ANYWAY yes, time to deal with the NEW apocalypse (now with both less AND more explanations for the presence of certain glass eyes).


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think it's time to accept that I just have to shorten my chapters a little so I can post twice a week. I think I need to be honest with myself about my impulse control in that respect.

“Okay, we don’t need to panic just yet. Maybe it’s from before,” Luther tried.

Klaus shook his head. “He broke it after we found Harold dead. Smashed it against a wall, definitely nothing left of it.”

“Well _ , shit _ ,” Luther muttered.

Ben opened the second pocket of Five’s backpack. While the larger pocket seemed to be mostly survival gear, this pocket was full of notes and books. He reached inside, pulling out a copy of the autobiography he’d been reading. This one, however, was worn, like it had been read a thousand times. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say we all died again. This looks… uh…”

“Like a book about your family would look if they’d all died and it was all you had to remember them by?” Vanya said, sliding the book out of his hands to take a look.

“Yeah,” Ben said gingerly. He leaned over her shoulder and opened the book and rifled through the pages. “There’s more than one set of handwriting in it, though.”

“So, what?” Allison asked, leaning over Vanya’s other shoulder. “There’s still an apocalypse, but not everyone dies?”

“But we do,” Luther muttered.

“That or he  _ really _ committed to the Delores thing this time,” Klaus said.

Diego hurtled inside, dragging Grace after him with a bag of supplies. Luther tugged Klaus out of the way to let her sit by Five, watching worriedly as she inspected him. She gave them a small smile, then got to work, setting up an IV.

“What’s happening?” Diego asked. Luther handed him the eye. “Well, fuck.” He turned around to check what the rest of them were doing. “Do we know anything else?”

“Well, we know we’ve changed  _ some _ things, right?” Allison asked, looking between all of them. She sighed. “But otherwise, no, we have no clue.”

Diego looked at Vanya, rolling the eye between his thumb and pointer. He frowned. “I don’t get it.”

Vanya shrugged at him helplessly. “I don’t either.”

“Next question… do you think Five will remember anything, or is he going to wake up just as baffled as the rest of us?” Klaus asked, hovering worriedly over Five. “Because, uh… Not to worry anyone, but we really know  _ very _ little about _ very _ few things.”

“Look, we need to find Harold Jenkins,” Luther said. “And until we do, we need to focus on Five.” He put his hand on Grace’s back. “How’s he doing?”

“He’ll be alright,” she assured. “Just needs some rest.”

Luther sighed in relief. “Okay, good.”

“I’m on Harold,” Diego said as he headed out of the room in a hurry. “I’ve already got Eudora on the lookout, but I’ll tell her it’s urgent now.”

“And I guess I’m going to try to talk to Dad, find out what he knows,” Klaus said, making a pained face as he followed Diego. “Fu-huh-ck.”

“I’m going to try to make sense of this,” Ben muttered, peering into the backpack at the scattered papers and notebooks. “There’s a bunch of notes in here, maybe something will be useful.”

Luther nodded, eyes following Grace as she wiped Five’s brow with a cool cloth.

**

“So you think she’s… actually…” Allison whispered, once Grace had left the room. She gestured awkwardly. “You know, working?”

Luther nodded, leaning over Five. Allison followed his gaze, her hand settling on Five’s wrist out of instinct. He was still breathing like he’d just run a marathon, but he didn’t look as green around the edges. “I mean, she’s taking care of him, right? I don’t think her first aid programming was turned off.”

“So, what?” Vanya interjected. “He didn’t kill himself?”

“Seems like it,” Luther said. “But something is weird about this whole situation. Since we got back, I haven’t seen Pogo anywhere.”

Vanya pursed her lips, biting back the words clearly on the tip of her tongue. Ben looked up, glancing between them, then sighed, wedging himself a little further into the corner. Allison wondered if he found it difficult to remember they could see him.

“Look, he played along with Dad’s schemes, but Pogo was good to us,” Luther said, “and the fact that he’s just  _ gone _ is a concern no matter  _ how _ we feel about him.”

“You mean he lied to us for Dad and then pretended to be our friend?” Vanya snapped.

Luther opened his mouth to say something, but Allison stopped him with a glare. “Luther. We’ll figure out where Pogo is soon, alright? Us fighting isn’t going to help anyone.” She looked at Vanya. “You too, Vanya. I know you have every right to be angry, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not really weird that Pogo is missing.”

Vanya sighed, shifting from one foot to the other. “Fine,” she said.

“Fine,” Luther mumbled.

Allison rolled her eyes. “Good.” She sighed, looking at the rooms across from her. She frowned. “Is something different about our rooms?” She strode over to the door and swung it back and forth a few times. “It’s  _ metal _ .”

“What?” Vanya asked, moving to look at the door as well. She pulled it open to look at the handle. “Oh my god, are these… deadbolts?”

There was a large lock on the door that didn’t seem to be attached to any locking mechanism on either side. “Remotely controlled deadbolts,” Allison amended.

“On Ben’s room?” Vanya asked.

Luther pressed past them to look at the other rooms. “On all of them except for Five’s,” he said.

“What the hell?” Vanya said. “Even mine?”

“Yeah,” Luther said. “And it looks like the hinges have been reinforced, too.”

“To make sure no one broke in?” Allison tried, though she knew that was unlikely.

“Or out,” Vanya muttered.

Luther hesitated, frowning. “I need to check something.”

“What?”

Luther made a face. “It’s… down in the basement. I don’t know if you want to come or not.”

“Well, again, as long as you don’t lock me up,” Vanya muttered.

“I just want to see something,” Luther said under his breath. “Obviously I’m not going to lock you up again.”

“Well the world still ends and Harold is still involved, so we don’t know I’m not going to go nuclear,” Vanya snapped.

“That’s all the more reason not to lock you up again!” Luther protested. “I mean, I’m not  _ that _ stupid.”

Allison rolled her eyes, putting a hand on his arm to calm him. “Either come or not,” she told Vanya. “I know you want to be included and we want to include you too, but we understand if you want to stay up here, Vanya. You can keep Ben company, remind him he’s alive and we can  _ see him judging us silently _ .” She shot Ben a glare from where he was leaning over in his chair to see around the door.

“No, I know,” Ben called. “I’m enjoying it.”

“I can handle it,” Vanya insisted. She looked at Luther, sighing. “I know you’re not going to do anything.” Luther made a face as if to say  _ duh _ , but they both followed Allison downstairs in silence.

Still, Allison paused before opening the door to the basement floor. “Vanya,” she said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but are you really sure? I mean, psychological triggers are unpredictable.”

“I know that,” Vanya said. “But I’m fine. You can open the door.”

Allison cracked it open, letting Vanya take a look from outside.

Vanya breathed deeply, but nodded at Allison again. “It’s okay. I can handle this.”

“Alright,” Allison said. “Luther?” She stepped aside to let Luther into the hall, then followed Vanya in, staying close to her.

Earlier, it had been only one room, at the end of the corridor, one window looking into the hallway. Now, there were more doors.

“Jesus,” Luther said, looking in one of the windows. “Soundproof walls?”

Vanya paused at one of the doors that was significantly thicker. “That’s a hell of a reinforced door…”

“This one looks like it’s made of some kind of stone… crystal wall,” Allison said, squinting into the dim room. “Marble or something?”

Luther paused at the end of the hall, where the door was missing, as though the room had been allocated but not finished. “I’m guessing this is Five’s,” he muttered.

“He built a room for each of us,” Allison whispered. “Oh my god.”

“Why?” Vanya asked.

“Because Allison rumored him,” Luther said. He leaned against the empty doorframe, hanging his head. “It’s been so obvious and I keep falling for his… his  _ bullshit _ . He never locked Vanya away because she was too powerful. It was just because she didn’t listen to him.”

“Maybe both,” Vanya offered. As happy as Allison was to see them trying to find common ground, she shook her head. Vanya was the last person who should be making excuses for their father.

“Yeah, well, I’m willing to take bets on which one he cared about more,” Luther said bitterly.

Vanya grimaced. “Let’s go,” she said, voice shaking slightly. “We’ve seen enough. I’m going to stay with Five.”

Allison nodded, looking back at Luther, who hadn’t moved. She tipped her head towards him to indicate to Vanya to go alone.  _ I’ll be right up _ , she mouthed. Vanya nodded back, not wasting another moment in getting out of there. Allison wished she could do the same. There was a haunting atmosphere down here that made Allison feel like a scared little kid again. “You okay?”

“I should have never trusted him,” Luther muttered. “I only did because he treated me better.”

“He was an asshole to you too,” Allison said. “I mean he put so much responsibility on you for… basically no reason.”

“Yeah, he put me in charge,” Luther said, finally letting go of the doorframe. “I was strong and loyal and so he liked me better.”

“Those aren’t bad things, Luther,” Allison murmured softly.

Luther watched her quietly, face dark. “They were with Dad in the picture.” 

Luther had always been self assured, and there were times when Allison had really hated him for it. She’d been as angry at him as she was at Reginald when she first left. “Well,” Allison said. “You got a room too, so… clearly you stuck with us when it mattered.”

“Yeah, unless he just got paranoid and built one for every kid that could turn against him.” He gave the empty door a sour look. “He never thought Five was coming back. He let us think he’d never forgotten, but...”

Allison sighed, moving to hug him. He didn’t return the gesture. “Luther, it’s over. He’s gone now. We’ve done what we can to undo our own wrongs and it’s time to move on from Dad.”

Luther took a heavy breath. For a moment, there was only silence between them. “Yeah,” he said finally, his hand settling on the back of her head to bring her closer. “You’re right.”

She nodded, leading him out of the hallway. She glanced back, eyes lingering on the dark doors, and shuddered. The thought of being locked up in there, away from her siblings, away from everything… that would stay with her a long time.

**

“So,” Diego said, rapping his knuckles on the side of Five’s door. “We need to talk.” He looked at Five, who looked small and breakable enough he might as well have been made of china. Vanya started awake at the noise. “I think we should let Five rest. If he hears us he’ll want to join in, and he shouldn’t be out of bed.”

“Right,” Vanya said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Should I come downstairs?”

Diego nodded. “Yeah. Don’t rush, I still have to get the others.”

Vanya rubbed her eyes. “No, I’ll be right there, I just need to get Mom to watch him.”

“Alright,” Diego said. “I’ve still got to grab Klaus.” He patted the door in what he hoped was an encouraging manner. He and Vanya had never been close, exactly, but he’d liked her alright up until her book had dropped. Then, he’d mostly just felt betrayed. Clearly, it was past time to put those feelings aside, but it was awkward as hell to try.

None of them had ever really tried to make up with each other once things went wrong. Maybe it was time for that to change for all of them.

Finding Klaus took a few moments, but eventually Diego came across him in the kitchen, shaking nearly half a tin of raisins into his mouth.

“Seriously?” Diego asked.

“What?” Klaus whined, nearly spewing raisins all over the floor. “I talked to Dad and now I’m trying to eat away my cravings to get high.” He made a face. “Raisins are not the best food for that.”

“Wait, you talked to Dad?” Diego said, surging forward. “What did you find out?”

“Well, for starters, how to banish dead people, so that’s exciting!” Klaus said.

“ _ Klaus _ .”

“He didn’t know anything,” Klaus whined. “And he was even surlier than usual at me. Oh, but he does think he was poisoned by someone. Then again, maybe he just didn’t realize how old he was.” He leaned in to stage whisper at Diego. “I wouldn’t bet money on it, but I think the old man lost a few more of his marbles in this timeline.”

“But he didn’t kill himself?” Diego asked.

“Doesn’t seem to be the case,” Klaus said, pouring the remainder of the raisins into his mouth. “Last time he sure wasn’t secretive about it, so I don’t know why he’d lie about it this time.”

Diego made a face.

“What?” Klaus asked, studying him with an unfamiliar clarity. He lowered his voice to make it sound like a joke, but his eyes were serious as he asked, “Do you have a suspect?”

“Yeah,” Diego said. “Meet me upstairs, we have something we need to talk about.”

Klaus frowned, but he didn’t waste time hobbling to his feet and after Diego into the living room. “Hi Ben!” he said, waving. “It’s so much more fun to see you when I don’t see you literally  _ all the time _ !”

Ben looked up from his book. “Likewise,” he said, with a small, wry smile. Klaus collapsed on the couch beside him, leaning his head on Ben’s shoulder. “Dad?”

“News to no one: he’s the  _ worst _ .”

“What’s going on Diego?” Luther asked. He seemed to be in a capital-m-Mood. Great.

“I looked up Harold Jenkins,” Diego said, showing his file. “Same story. Killed his dad, sentenced to jail for 12 years.”

Vanya stretched out her hand. “Can I?”

Diego nodded, handing over the file. She opened it up, pursing her lips when she saw the photo. It was probably still hard for her to believe, but Diego didn’t know how to even start going about comforting her about it.  _ Sorry your ex was a psychopath?  _

“However,” Diego continued. “He didn’t serve all of those years this time. Instead, he was broken out of jail.”

“By who?” Allison asked.

“By two armed gunmen in children’s masks,” Diego said. He was definitely going to call Eudora after this talk was over, just to be sure. He’d already told her not to go after anyone without backup, but he was itching to make absolutely sure.

“Hazel and Cha-Cha,” Klaus whispered.

“Yeah,” Diego said.

“Well, fuck,” Klaus said.

“The Commission must have sent them to protect Harold earlier,” Allison whispered.

“The Commission is--” Diego started to explain for Vanya, but she waved him off.

“Thanks, but Allison explained everything. As much as it can be explained, anyway.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Ben said. “Harold was just the trigger for Vanya, right? I mean, I don’t think Vanya’s anywhere near losing it again.”

Vanya shrugged. “I mean, maybe if I get too worked up…” She stopped. “But no, we all know about Harold in this timeline. I mean, I don’t know how, but Five must have left us something about him, because I warned Helen about him. He’d have no way of getting close to me in the first place, not like last time.”

“He still has a massive grudge against us, though,” Allison said. “I mean, with the right tools from the Commission, he could do a lot.”

“I don’t think Vanya’s the cause for the apocalypse anymore,” Luther said. “I mean, we think Five wasn’t alone, so people must have survived, right? And there’s no way that’d be the case if the moon… you know,” he gave Vanya an apologetic look, “blew up again.”

Vanya frowned. “So Harold is still necessary for the apocalypse, but I’m not? How does that make  _ any _ sense at all?”

“It was a very creepy murder shrine,” Diego offered. Of course, at this point he mostly remembered the fact that Five had passed out in it, but the burned off faces were not good news. “Allison’s right, Harold threw us for a loop with nothing but a notebook of Dad’s research, and since we know fuck all about how the Commission operations… they could very well have taken interest in him for some other reason. And once they did… who knows what he could do with their help.”

“Not to mention, he’s been out of jail for about five years with them, so who knows what plans he’s come up with in that time,” Ben said. He grimaced with another realization. “And we don’t even know how much time travel that includes.”

“Could have been decades,” Klaus muttered, staring tiredly into space.

“But he just wants to kill  _ us _ ,” Allison said. “Why would he want to end the world?”

“Job interview,” Ben offered. “I mean… if he’s working with the Commission, then…”

“Then maybe this is his trial run,” Klaus breathed. “Or like… probation period. Yeah, I can see that.”

“Great,” Diego said. “So we have a psychopath out there who hates us and probably wants to end the world on purpose.”

“And probably killed Dad,” Klaus added, like he’d just remembered.

“What?” everyone blurted at once.

“Oh, yeah, Dad’s  _ positive _ he was murdered,” Klaus said. “Wait. Did anyone check for his research?”

“No, but we should,” Diego said. “If Harold got it again…”

“It won’t be where he had it last,” Luther said. His scowl was deepening. “In fact, I bet it’s not going to be anywhere we can get to it.”

“Sounds like _ you’ve _ made some discoveries too,” Diego said. “Anything you care to share with the class?”

“Dad made prisons for all of us except Five,” Vanya explain. “Like he did for me.”

“Wait, what?” Klaus said. “What does that even mean, for all of us?”

“They’re all equipped with things to block out our powers. Soundproof walls, reinforced doors…” Allison said. “Something for all six of us.”

“Wait. All  _ six _ of us? You mean there’s been a way to block out the dead people this whole time and Dad didn’t  _ tell _ me?” Klaus blurted, uncharacteristically serious. “I could have actually  _ slept _ as a kid and Dad just  _ locked me into a mausoleum  _ instead?”

There was no good answer to that.

“Unbelievable,” Klaus said, flopping back onto the couch. “I’d summon him again to call him a waste of humanity but frankly I don’t want to see him.”

Vanya made a small noise of agreement, and even Luther seemed to commiserate for once.

“Seriously, though, where is it?” Klaus continued, slowly returning to his regular cheer.   
“And does it have a bed, because if it does I am going to have the best night of sleep in my _life_.”

Allison looked back and forth between Vanya and Luther like she couldn’t decide if it was better to tell him or to intervene.

“Basement where mine was,” Vanya said.

“Does anyone actually need me? Because I’m ready to go right now,” Klaus said. “Actual  _ sleep _ , can you believe it?” He leaned over to whisper to Allison. “There are dead people screaming at me  _ all the time _ .”

“I don’t know,” Diego said. “I mean, what do we do from here? I figure we should find Harold, but…” He shrugged. They didn’t have time to waste and yet there was nothing obvious to do. “What do you think, Number One?” He hadn’t technically meant to make it sound so sarcastic, but it was hard not to.

“I think Dad’s a horrible person who made me Number One for all the wrong reasons,” Luther said.

Diego nodded. “Okay, so that’s that.” He’d always wanted to hear that from Luther, but frankly, at the moment it just felt depressing and cumbersome.

“The whole idea of numbering us is pretty fucked up in general, right?” Klaus said, looking at Ben for confirmation. Ben nodded.

“Okay, so  _ no _ leader, then,” Diego said with faux cheer. “ _ Very _ successful meeting so far.”

“Well, we’ve got to find Leonard - Harold - right?” Vanya said. “If it’s not me, then he’s planning something new and we need to know what.”

“Well, since I am – somehow – a cop, I have people on Harold,” Diego said. “I’ll let them know we have reason to believe he killed Dad and hope it helps track him down.”

“Maybe tell someone he can time travel,” Klaus muttered.

Diego had no idea how that would go over and he wasn’t eager to find out. “... I’ll tell Eudora.”

“I’m still reading,” Ben said. “But Five has more than one book this time.” He held up a handful of notebooks. “So anyone can join me.” He stopped. “Oh, yeah, and I think we might have the answer to Dad’s paranoia in this.” He waved the autobiography. “Listen to this:

“ _ On the day our brother Five disappeared, something strange happened to all of us. Three days of our memory were lost. According to Dad, we had knocked him out, somehow forced Mom to send Pogo away, and had covered all the cameras. He questioned us for days afterwards before he was finally convinced we truly didn’t remember. He chalked it up to some form of biological warfare, and made us all take up extra lessons in chemistry and biology. We were determined to placate him by being even more obedient than we were before, and we had almost managed. _

_ “But that was before we heard from Number Five, _ ” he read. He shrugged. “And it sounds like once we got occupied with Five, his rules were bumped pretty low on our priority list.”

Luther shrugged. “So yeah,” he said. “We disobeyed him and he made sure he could contain us. No surprise there.”

“Five left some notes in the margins around that,” Ben said. “Clearly, this wasn’t a version of Five that remembered doing all this.”

“That checks out,” Allison said. “After all, it would have been the Five who jumped before we jumped  _ back _ , right?” She frowned, lips working as she traced an invisible chart of timelines.

Ben nodded.

She sighed and leaned over to take one of the notebooks, opening it up at a random page. “Wow, that’s a  _ lot _ of equations,” she said, squinting. “But some of his notes are… words, so maybe there’s something useful that I can actually… understand.”

“Okay,” Diego said. “So we’re just… reading.”

“I don’t know what else we can do until we’ve found Harold and Five wakes up,” Vanya said.

Diego sighed, looking at Luther for possible suggestions, but Luther looked like he might need a bit of time to process. “Okay, sure. Meeting adjourned. Klaus, go sleep.”

“Yes!” Klaus cheered, leaping over the couch to run off.

Diego rolled his eyes, finding his keys as he left. “Someone check on him if he’s not back in a few hours, don’t let him lock himself down there.” He was going to go straight to the police station and warn Eudora about fifteen times before telling her what they’d come up with.

“I’m going to stay with Five,” Vanya said. “I feel weird leaving him alone up there.”

“I’ll go with you,” Ben said. “I can read next to him.”

Allison hummed absently, following both of them without looking up from the notebook she’d grabbed.

Diego sighed as he made his way to the front door. “World ends in eight days and we’re reading our little brother’s diary…” he muttered to himself. He shut the door as he stepped outside. Well, whatever. They’d done weirder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy when plotting this monster it was just a perpetual cycle of finding new plot holes and fixing them only to realize I'd created more plot holes and me just slowly losing my mind until I got to a point where I was like "Okay this plot as a whole probably makes decent sense" and now I'm just waiting here with my fists up for the first person to point out a plothole I didn't think of in the comments that I then have to fix while pretending I thought of it in the first place.
> 
> Time travel is, in fact, a crapshoot, and I'm only writing it. (It's really making me feel for Five. Will this convince me to go easy on him? No it will not.)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point I've written everything up to chapter 14 and 2 final chapters and an outline for the middle in which I constantly shake down my closest friends to be like "Hey, is Five this stupid? He's this stupid, right?" and "Am I going overboard with this???" so that's where I am right now in life.

“Hey,” Vanya said, drawing Ben’s attention out of his book. “I’m going to meet Helen, you alright here alone?”

Ben shrugged. “Yeah. I’m pretty used to it.”

Vanya sucked in a heavy breath. No one really knew how to talk about his death, and he really wished they wouldn’t try. There wasn’t much to talk about. It had happened, and being dead had sucked. Now he wasn’t dead. He didn’t want to keep being followed around by it.

He missed Klaus, and the way he never had any tact about Ben’s death, but the last time he’d checked on Klaus, he’d been dead asleep in the most peaceful, drooling heap Ben had ever seen him in.

“Besides, Five’s here to keep me company,” he said with a smile, patting Five’s hand. “And I’m sure Allison will wake up soon.” She’d nodded off in her chair a few times while reading, and they had insisted she go sleep in her own bed until she’d relented.

To be honest, Five was the one who looked dead right about now, though he was still breathing. Ben had found himself checking every so often. Five _definitely_ didn’t have the temperament to be stuck with Klaus alone forever.

“Okay,” Vanya said. “Sure, yeah.” She looked like she almost regretted the fact that he’d be fine.

“You nervous?” Ben asked.

“About meeting my girlfriend who I don’t remember actually knowing and questioning her about the life I technically led but which I, personally, only led in my wildest dreams? Yeah, you could say that,” Vanya said, practically shaking as she tucked her hair behind her ears, looking at her clothes as though she’d only now realized they were too plain for a date.

“You’ll do fine,” Ben assured her. “You said she knows us, so she can’t have very high expectations in the field of normalcy, right?”

Vanya laughed at that, though it was still breathy and short. She looked at Ben, the smile fading as quickly as it had come. “I missed you a lot,” she said. “I always hated that I didn’t even get a chance to try to save you.”

“I know,” Ben replied softly. “And I know if you’d been there you would have done everything you could.”

Vanya nodded, then smiled feebly.

“Have a good really weird date,” Ben said. “Just remember, at least she’s not a serial killer.”

“Funny,” Vanya said, finally looking a little less queasy as she gave him a sardonic smile. “But okay. I’ll remember that.”

Ben smiled at her, waving as she left. He looked at Five, pale and still as he slept. “Just you and me, I guess,” he muttered. He returned to reading. The book itself was interesting, but Ben found himself drawn to Five’s notes in the margins.

Some of them were remarks on things. The name of the donut shop in thick letters, like Five had gone over the letters over and over while remembering the place, imagining his family there. Small fragments of equations scribbled down quickly between lines like Five was scared he’d forget them if he didn’t write them down immediately. He could tell when they’d been written by Five’s handwriting. It got smaller and neater over the years, and so Ben could tell which notes were written during later rereads. Things like _Vanya → Apocalypse?_ and _Timeline 1, not 2_.

“You always were too smart for your own good,” Ben murmured to Five.

He’d always looked up to Five. Five had never had any reservations about his powers. Ben supposed part of that was that he’d never faced any consequences for them other than exhaustion – and ultimately the horror of time travel – but part of it was just Five. He wanted to know everything. He wanted to always be ahead of everyone. And yet, no matter how ambitious he was, he’d never bugged Ben for not wanting to use his powers. He was almost kind about it, in subtle, coarse ways.

It had been hard when Five had disappeared. Ben had missed his presence, felt the loss deeply every day. He’d spent a lot of his time half expecting Five to just pop into his room telling him to shut up so Five could babble about some crazy idea.

He heard a mumble from the bed, quickly turning to look at Five. He was still out cold, but his brows were furrowed and he looked clammy. “Hey,” Ben said, reaching over to try to soothe Five. His lips were moving, but his voice was so quiet, Ben had to sit on the bed and lean in to hear him.

“Vanya…” Five mumbled. He sounded distressed. “Ben… Dad… Anyone…”

“I’m here,” Ben said, pushing Five’s hair out of his face. He was sweaty and cold to the touch. “It’s Ben. You’re not alone.”

“ _Anyone_ ,” Five croaked, a little louder.

Ben squeezed his shoulder. “Five. I’m here.”

Five’s lashes fluttered. The knot in between his brows eased, though Ben had a sneaking suspicion it was because exhaustion had dragged Five deeper into sleep rather than because he’d relaxed. He sighed. “I’m going to get Allison, I’ll be right back,” he told Five, though he didn’t think Five could hear him.

Allison had gone to her own room to take a nap. Flying in from LA had been a bit much for her, so Ben had told her to get some rest, but now he thought it might be better if Five heard some voices around him while he slept.

He knocked on her door, and after a few moments she stumbled out, bleary eyed. “What’s happening?” she asked, like she was fully expecting a full-scale attack on the house.

“Five’s talking in his sleep, having nightmares, I think. I thought it’d help if we talked around him,” Ben said.

Allison took a moment to blink away the sleep, then nodded. “Yeah, okay, I’m coming.” She was in a t-shirt and pajama pants, the most casual he’d ever seen her. It was strangely homey. She grabbed the notebook she’d started reading earlier and followed Ben back to Five’s room.

“What did he say?” she asked.

“Just calling for us,” Ben said. Five hadn’t moved an inch. “I think… he must have been dreaming about that day when he arrived in the future.”

“Yeah,” Allison said. “I’ve been wondering how he handled that. He acts like he’s above everything now because he’s old, but he was still 13 when he found the world in ruins. And all of us dead.”

“Couldn’t have been easy,” Ben agreed.

“I don’t know what I would have done in that situation,” Allison murmured. She looked at Five, the small knot still lingering between his brows, then sighed. “He’s going to hate this, but I’m a mom. I know how to handle nightmares.”

She handed Ben her notebook, then kicked off her slippers and sat on the bed, positioning herself so one elbow was over Five’s head. She wasn’t touching him much, but her body formed what felt like a blockade between Five and the world.

“Mom?” Five mumbled.

Allison sighed, rubbing his arm carefully. “Sure, sweetheart,” she murmured, in the soft way Grace said things. She looked up at Ben. “Remind me to get Mom up here when she’s done charging.”

Ben found himself laughing.

“What?” Allison asked, though she was also laughing.

“You just… _look_ like a mom.”

“I _am_ a mom!”

“I know, but…” Ben gestured at Five, suppressing a giggle.

“You know, I’m old enough to be his mom,” she said, a smile creeping over her own face. “Physically speaking.”

“You make him look like such a tiny kid,” Ben laughed. “If he wakes up he’ll be so mad.”

Allison giggled. “ _So_ mad.” She paused, going quiet as she noted his presence. To Ben’s relief, she didn’t comment on it, just let herself relax in the knowledge that he was there. “Hand me the notebook,” she said. “I’m going to try to make something of these notes.” She leaned over Five conspiratorially. “Have you noticed our brother takes notes like a crazy person?”

Ben snorted. “I thought it was all the time spent alone surrounded by nothing and with a short supply of paper, but no, he just…”

“He writes his notes on other notes,” Allison whispered, shifting so she wasn’t talking right into Five’s ear. “I get the feeling he just dove to get whatever notebook he could find before the thought escaped and then just…” She sighed, waving at the page that had several equations looping around other equations like a spiral.

“And he doesn’t go in order, either,” Ben pointed out.

“No he does not,” she muttered. “He just scribbled his new notes over notes he did years ago, from the looks of how the ink faded.” She flipped through a few pages quickly, just to get a sense of how much work was still ahead, then gasped. “Look, he’s _boxed_ this one in!” She showed it to Ben. “Legible letters!”

Indeed, in a neat box that was surrounded by Five’s usual layering of notes on top of notes, there was empty space with a neat array of numbers and symbols. Some of them were in clearly different handwriting.

“Something he was sharing with whoever he was with?” Ben suggested.

Allison turned the page back towards herself to squint at it. “Yeah, maybe, but they’re just a bunch of numbers…” She took a sharp breath. “Coordinates.”

“That would be more digits,” Ben said. These were sets of at most three digits in similar clusters.

“No, not longitude and latitude,” Allison said. “I mean he made up his _own_ coordinates for the city. Look at the symbols. A cross, for medical supplies, right? I think this is meant to be a fork? For food?”

“Inventory,” Ben realized. The symbols were lined up neatly beside more numbers. “They were searching the city.”

Allison nodded. “And…” she pointed at a number in the corner of the box. “385.” She flipped the page over. “Next one is 386.”

“Days into the apocalypse,” Ben guessed excitedly. “We might be able to use that.” He smirked at Allison. “Man, if we ever find out who yelled at him into having at least _some_ sensible organization, we should buy them a fruit basket. ‘Hi you don’t know us, but we think you schooled our crazy, stubborn ass of a genius brother into leaving us some idea about how the world ended in an alternate future, so thanks and all.’”

Allison looked at him for a moment, her joy at having him back obvious on her face, before she burst into laughter.

**

“So,” Eudora said, with an extremely severe look. “Before we go inside, I’m going to repeat your story again.”

“I’m honestly insulted at this point,” Klaus muttered, yawning. As creepy as the basement jail cells were, he’d slept like a baby until Diego had dragged him out of bed, and he felt like he was still trying to wake up. Was this what everyone else felt like in the morning, rather than bolting out of bed a sweaty mess?

If so, Klaus was going to join Five in his hunt for good coffee any time now.

“Don’t worry, she did this to me, too,” Diego said.

“Pay attention,” she scolded.

Klaus cleared his throat, shaking himself a little with innocent eyes as he stared at her. He was clearly hoping to make her uncomfortable, but Diego knew Eudora was unshakeable as a mountain. “You are a consultant. You come here, you talk to dead people, tell us what you can about who murdered them, and then we pay you.”

“Nice,” Klaus whispered. “Oh man, I missed out on such a good job opportunity in my first life.”

“We did give you a time limit on talking to the dead,” Eudora said. “Because necrophilia _is_ illegal.”

“I tried to sleep with the corpses?” Klaus asked, wrinkling his nose. “That doesn’t sound like me.”

“Technically, yes, that is how it appeared. Personally, I think you just liked getting out of the morgue as soon as possible so you made sure it happened,” Eudora said, her eyes dancing with amusement.

“Okay, yes, that does sound right,” Klaus said.

“You know pretty much everyone at this precinct, so just try to make small talk with them, okay?” Eudora said. “I’ll try to keep them off your back as much as I can.”

Klaus nodded.

“And we’re not telling the team about time travelling assassins,” Diego cut in. “If anyone asks, it’s a copycat situation.”

Klaus nodded. “Right. Chit-chat, pretend to be aroused by corpses, copycats. Got it.”

“Yeah, this is a disaster waiting to happen,” Diego muttered, clapping Klaus’ back as they entered the precinct. Klaus wanted to protest on principle, but he happened to agree. There was no way Klaus wouldn’t put his foot in his mouth.

She led them to a conference room. Several officers looked at him, and Klaus was tempted to check his pockets for things to dispose of while they weren’t looking.

“Mr. Hargeeves,” Eudora started, while Klaus proudly mouthed _Mister_  at Diego behind her back, “has done some research for us. I want you all to take down any names and details of deaths that could be used to tie them to cold cases. This operation is practically a copycat dynasty, so be prepared for a lot of cases abroad, possibly decades old.” She looked at Klaus. “Ready?”

Klaus took a deep breath, then nodded. “Okay, so…” he started, leaning his elbow onto the podium at the front of room and crossing his ankles, frowning as he tried to remember the multitude of dead bodies surrounding the assassins that had tortured him. “Let’s see, there was a Russian lady, I think, with a bullet wound to the head…”

Eudora waved Diego over.

“What’s up?” Diego asked.

“It’s about your dad,” Eudora said. “If you think these people killed him… there’s a conflict of interest. You can’t work this case officially.”

“What?” Diego blurted. “That’s bullshit.”

“Diego,” Eudora warned. “Since you’re from an alternate timeline in which you dropped out of the police academy, you are technically impersonating a cop. I’m doing my best to make sure you don’t…” She made a face, gesturing vaguely.

“Get arrested for time travel crimes?” Diego teased.

“Diego, I’m serious,” Eudora said. “I’m helping because I know this is important and I’ll keep you in the loop because you’re a good detective, but you have to work with me and follow the rules. I’m trying to protect you.”

Diego sighed, shuffling his feet. “So am I. I don’t want you to go after these guys alone,” he said. “Eudora, they _killed_ you.”

“I’ll keep you updated on every detail we find before we move anywhere,” Eudora promised. “And I won’t go anywhere near them without backup.”

Diego took a deep breath. Insisting Eudora do things his way had gotten her killed, but he couldn’t stand to let her go alone. “Please just tell me if you have a lead. I want to come with you.”

Eudora sighed. “Okay. Sure. If you’re quiet about it and you don’t cause a ruckus, you can come along with me.”

Diego nodded. “Alright,” he said. “I can compromise.”

“News to me,” Eudora said, smiling.

“Funny,” Diego said, freezing when Eudora pulled him in for a soft kiss.

She laughed at the look on his face, but it was gentle. “It’s going to be alright, Diego, just trust me.”

**

Luther sighed. He was wallowing, and that was useless to everyone. Just because he’d been the last to realize what a dick Dad was didn’t mean he had time to mope about it. He picked himself off the ground and trudged up to the surveillance room.

Like the bedrooms, the door had been updated and it was currently dead bolted shut. He threw his shoulder against it experimentally, but as expected, it didn’t budge.

He frowned, squatting down to survey the lock. It was enclosed in a large metal knot. If it was made to withstand Luther, it was unlikely it would be susceptible to any power tools. The frame, however, was still the old wood, meaning that with enough time and effort, he could probably pry it away and chuck the whole door.

That, or he could wait for Five. He wasn’t sure what was faster. Five had definitely had several training days where he’d gotten sick or collapsed, but he’d never knocked himself out cold like this. Luther was lying to himself if he didn’t admit he was worried that Five might never wake up.

And he wasn’t sure what else to do. Diego and Klaus were doing what they could to find Harold, Hazel and Cha-Cha. Vanya and Ben were trying to piece together their old lives while Allison tried to make sense of Five’s notes. There was no telling when Five would wake up.

He went downstairs to grab some tools and returned, setting a chisel into the frame and pounding it with one swing of the hammer into the wall. He pried it away, pulling anything that had splintered enough out of the way. Piece by piece, he wrenched away wood and mortar around the lock.

“Luther, dear, you’re making a mess,” came a voice behind him.

Luther looked up, swallowing as Grace looked back at him. He had no idea what to expect from her in this timeline.

“Uh,” he said. “Sorry, I just… need some answers.”

Grace gave him a funny look, like she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to say. She smiled, almost rueful. “You’re going to get blisters,” she said, strolling over and reaching for the tools.

Luther squinted at her. She’d been programmed by Reginald. He didn’t know how much to trust her. But she’d never lied to them before. He gave her the chisel and hammer, letting her continue his work.

She did so silently.

“Do you ever hate Dad?” he asked, watching her work, breaking their father’s rules to help him. If she was capable of that, was she aware what he’d been like as a father? Luther could remember a handful of times when Grace had wanted to help them, but had been stopped by Reginald’s icy glares. She’d never protested, but Luther wasn’t sure if she was even capable of it.

“Of course not, silly,” she said. “He was a great man.”

“You were made to care about us. To protect us,” Luther said. “With how he raised us, that couldn’t have been easy.”

Grace paused ever so slightly before continuing. “It was difficult to see him let paranoia get the better of him,” she said. She smiled brightly, but something about it was haunting. “As though you children would ever hurt him.”

That confirmed why the rooms were down there. It still didn’t answer all the questions, though. “Where’s Pogo?” Luther asked. “I would have thought he’d be here for the funeral if he could.”

“Pogo is fine,” Grace said with a smile. “Your father felt he was a liability here. That he was… soft on you children. He had better use for him elsewhere.”

“And you?” Luther asked.

She didn’t look at him, smiling absently, like the smile wasn’t her own. It probably wasn’t. “I was indispensable, of course. Your father is good at a great many things, but childcare is not one of them.”

Luther snorted. She said it in that same cheery housewife tone, but there was a darkness behind it somewhere. It made her feel more human than Luther would have thought she could be. “Why didn’t he reprogram you?” he asked.

“He tried his best,” she said. It still sounded like praise from her mouth, but the words finally sounded almost critical. “But he never altered my fundamental purpose – to fulfill your needs.”

“He didn’t realize love was one of those needs,” Luther muttered.

Grace looked back to smile at him. She didn’t confirm it, but Luther understood the sentiment.

“I wish you didn’t have to praise him,” Luther said. It was a weak interpretation of just how much was wrong with all this, but it was the best he could put into words.

“Oh, it’s not so bad,” she said. “I have you little darlings to cheer me up when your father is being… complicated.”

She pulled aside a chunk of mortar, and Luther stood up to try the door. It took several pulls, but it finally came out of the wall. He staggered with it, managing to put it against a wall with Grace’s help.

“Of course,” Grace said, “your father would never allow me to tell you where the switch boards are for the _rest_ of the fortified doors.”

Luther turned around to look at her. The way she’d said it was out of place. “Is there one in here?” he asked.

“One what?” she asked, cocking her head with a perfect smile.

Luther nodded, squeezing her arm. “I’ll find it. Thanks, Mom.”

“Of course, Luther dear,” she said, skirt swishing as she went to go.

Luther slipped inside. The room was full of cassettes and screens, but he didn’t see any switchboards. He leaned under the table, running his fingers along the smooth wood, but there were no notches or shakier parts. He tried the floorboards next until his fingers stopped against a slightly uneven one.

“Bingo,” he whispered to himself, digging his nails in to pry the board away.

It opened to a compartment just as he’d thought, but it was empty. He frowned, searching the compartment for a second door, but there was nothing. “Why would Dad have an empty compartment?” he asked himself. There was always the possibility that it was just there in the event that it was needed for something later, but Luther didn’t think Reginald was the kind of person who made hiding spots without knowing what would go there.

He ran his hands over the bottom of it again, finding a small piece of paper wedged into one of the corners. It didn’t have any writing on it, but it looked torn off of something else that had been here.

He sat back, looking around for any other clues. He squinted at the small window in the corner. It didn’t look broken, but on closer inspection, the edges of a few of the slats in the shutters looked different. Redone. He stood up and hurried to the nearest phone to call the police station.

He tapped his foot anxiously while the officer connected him to Diego.

“Yes?” Diego asked. “I mean… uh…”

“Hey, it’s Luther,” Luther said. He hoped Diego wasn’t getting actual official calls if that’s where he was at with catching up. “Do you have Harold’s prints on file?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *tries to make an ominous "it's coming from inside the house" joke* *can't think of anything* Ha. Harold Jenkins, am I right? (Sidenote, my brain is absolutely INSISTENT that Harold is the same name as Howard and it's only a matter of time before I slip up and leave a Howard in there while editing. Or, as find + replacing in one of my chapters showed me, 12 Howards.)
> 
>  
> 
> I sort of reshuffled my chapters so they're mostly the proper length so now I really have no idea what's going to happen next chapter but: Five wakes up (sort of). Chaos ensues.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've officially written my entire first draft for this fic... and now to edit until everything makes sense...

“I’m so sorry, this is really weird,” Vanya said, shifting awkwardly as she stared at Helen over their table. “I know this has to be hard for you, if we were serious.”

Helen sighed, giving her a pinched look. “Look, Vanya, if I wanted an easy relationship, I wouldn’t be with you,” she said. “I mean, I’m happy with you, don’t get me wrong, but we fight, you tend to use your powers when you’re angry, your family’s a mess…” She shrugged, poking her fork into a container of the takeout they’d ordered. “This isn’t new for me.”

“Right,” Vanya breathed. It was kind of weird to see Helen eating takeout in a hoodie. Vanya had always thought of her as the most elegant, dignified person on Earth when she’d looked at her from afar. “I just… I wish that I was at least the person who you… handled all those things for, you know?”

“You still are,” Helen said, sighing. “You’re different, but… Well, the things I like about you, they’re… complicated. And they’re just… you. I don’t think you could change them if you tried.”

Vanya smiled at that a little. “Right. Yeah. I’m sorry. I mean…”

“I know you are,” Helen said absently, smoothing out her skirt casually.

Vanya paused. She’d been ready to take it back, Leonard’s words ringing in her ears about not being sorry, but Helen didn’t seem bothered by the apology, or her nerves, the same way she seemed accepting of the entire confused situation. “I…” She wanted to ask about it, but there was no good way to phrase the question.

Helen raised an eyebrow. “Go on, spit it out,” she said. “You know how hard it is to—“ She stopped, closing her eyes and nodding. “Right, of course. You don’t know.” She pursed her lips. “I’m not easy to offend, Vanya. I’m… harsh. I don’t usually mean to be hurtful, but that doesn’t always work out. So I’ve learned I don’t have much place to expect tact in return. You can say pretty much anything to me, and we’ll move on from there.”

Vanya let out a slow breath. “Okay. Then… I guess it just surprised me that you didn’t tell me not to be sorry.”

“This sucks,” Helen said plaintively. “I don’t blame you, but I know in your place I’d apologize too, so I appreciate the sentiment.”

“Leonard just had a habit of telling me not to be sorry for who I am,” Vanya said, smiling awkwardly.

“Leonard who was actually Harold who infiltrated your life to kill your family?” Helen asked, a little too sharply. “That Leonard?”

Vanya dropped her eyes. God, she’d been such a gullible idiot. “Yes.”

Helen hummed, dropping her shoulders like she’d just noticed they were tense. “Well, fine, I guess if you’re just apologizing for who you are rather than this particular situation, then he has a point,” she said. “Like I _just_ said, I like who you are. Even the things that suck about you.”

“That’s…” Vanya murmured. “Nice, I think?” She did like the honesty. Helen laid everything out, bad or good, and Vanya could see herself growing comfortable with that. Their father had always been harsh, but he’d also been closed off and secretive – it was strangely comforting to see his harshness applied with sincerity and caring.

Helen sighed. “It’s really not. I’m sorry too. This is hard for me,” she said. She gave Vanya a halfhearted smile. “So, you know, it’ll be weird, and we’ll just apologize back and forth until it gets less weird. That’s how relationships work. And I don’t mind it.”

“I guess so,” Vanya murmured. “I guess Leonard… I guess _Harold_ just told me the things I wanted to hear. I felt like he knew me.” She sighed. “Well, he did know me. Because he was stalking me.”

“I’m _definitely_ not going to say the things you want to hear,” Helen said, scoffing. “I wouldn’t even know where to start if I wanted to.” She pushed her food around in the box.

Vanya smiled. “Probably a good thing. I was a bit of an idiot.”

“Runs in the family,” Helen said, the corner of her mouth quirking up.

That drew an unexpected laugh from Vanya, and Helen dropped her gaze to smile harder. She tucker her hair behind her ear, and Vanya couldn’t help but follow her fingers as they dropped back down past her neck. “So,” Vanya blurted, returning to the matter at hand before she got entirely distracted trying to understand – _or gawk at_ , part of her brain offered – Helen. “Um… I’m sorry to keep badgering you throughout all this, but we need any information we can get about things, because… well, the world ends in about a week.”

Helen’s head snapped up and she blinked at Vanya. “Excuse me?” she asked. “Then why are you wasting time worrying about how hard this is for me?”

That was a good, if unexpected question. “Because this has to suck,” Vanya stammered. “And I wanted to make sure you’d…” _Be okay? Still be here when I’m ready to try this for real?_

“It _does_ suck, but we can deal with that after the _world hasn’t ended_.”

“Point taken,” Vanya mumbled. “Okay, uh… What we know so far is that Harold is involved, probably killed our Dad, and we have a few leads on him. Five was in the apocalypse, so we’re trying to figure out his notes to see some clue about how it happened, but he’s also kind of comatose so we have no idea how much he knows. _And_ we know that our Dad kind of went crazy making sure he could control us.”

“You could say that, yes,” Helen said, with a hollow bark of a laugh.

“Anything you can tell us that we might not know might help,” Vanya said. “Seriously, it’s incredible how much we don’t know about things.”  

“Well,” Helen said, mulling it over. “In terms of what might be the most relevant… You did mention a suspicion that your Dad had started building an arsenal of actual weapons instead of his previous tactic of weaponized children.”

Vanya stared at her. _Dad was building weapons._ “Yeah, I _think_ that’s a start.”

**

“Family meeting, again,” Klaus said, yawning, before grinding to a halt and gasping as his sleepy brain caught up with him.

Allison was reading the notes as expected, but she was doing so over Five’s head while Five slept ever so slightly curled against her.

“This is so cute,” Klaus whispered. “Does _anyone_ have a camera?” He dug around on the desk desperately. How did Five not have a single camera in his room? No one had moved around any of his stuff, surely he had a Polaroid or something…

“Klaus,” Ben said, trying not to laugh. “Don’t embarrass him.”

“But he’s _adorable_ ,” Klaus whined. “Oh my god, he’s going to be so _angry_ when he wakes up.”

Allison snorted, chuckling to herself as she closed the book and carefully backed out of the bed. Five shifted slightly as she left his side, but he didn’t wake up.

“You ruined it!” Klaus whined.

“Klaus,” she said, still laughing a little. “Let the poor old man be.”

“Our baby brother…” Klaus opined.

Allison shook her head and tucked Five in. He made a small noise of protest, but went quiet as she smoothed out the covers. “We’ll be right back,” she murmured to him, patting his shoulder.

“You know, it’s human nature to be enamored with tiny apex predators that secretly love us unconditionally,” Klaus said. “He could kill me in a heartbeat but I just want to pinch his lil cheeks.”

“You will die,” Ben warned.

“Not until he’s awake I won’t,” Klaus said, poking Five’s nose. The boy snuffled ever so slightly at the motion, and Klaus leaned back to revel in it in all its glory. “Awww.”

“Come on, don’t harass our comatose brother,” Allison chided.

“Oh, fine,” Klaus said.

“Why not? He’s fine harassing your dead brother…” Ben muttered.

“You’re not even dead anymore, why are you _so_ mean?”

Ben grinned at him, turning to leave. Klaus whined at him, but followed him down the stairs. They crowded onto the couch, then paused, everyone unsure who was supposed to start talking. It was usually Luther’s job, but Luther was sitting back and being quiet, looking at Diego expectantly while Diego looked at him expectantly.

“Uh,” Vanya said, finally. “So…” She kneaded one of her hands with the other. “According to Helen, we all kind of thought Dad was stockpiling a bunch of dangerous weaponry. We didn’t know what kind, though, but we thought it had something to do with the day where we were… not us. Or future us. Or--”

“Yeah,” Diego cut in. “We all know what you mean. We’ll go crazy trying to describe everything perfectly, trust me.”

Vanya shrugged in agreement.

“Well, knowing Dad that’s almost _certainly_ the cause of the apocalypse,” Klaus said, yawning again. “He’s really a master of the self-fulfilling prophecy, isn’t he?” He squinted at Ben. “Does too much sleep make you sleepier?”

“Yes,” Ben said.

“Well that’s just unfair,” Klaus said, slumping onto Ben’s shoulder, drawing his knees up to his chest and closing his eyes.

“That’s only the start of the problem, though,” Diego said. “Luther and I have been dusting for prints, and Harold was definitely inside the house, and he _definitely_ stole stuff. He was careful not to leave many prints, but there are a few, _definitely_ his, all over the house.”

“Oh,” Allison said. “Shit.”

Vanya nodded, scooting a little closer to her.

“We’re not too sure what he took, but he did seem to find a lot of Dad’s switchboards for opening up places that were closed off from us,” Luther added. “So… there’s no telling if he did find any of the weapons Vanya’s talking about.” He sighed. “We’re still trying to figure out what switches open what, so until we’ve mapped all that out, that’s about where we are right now.” He gestured at Allison and Ben. “You?”

Allison sighed. “Five’s notes are a mess – I mean, really, just the biggest mess – but we think he was tracking his search of the city. Judging from the handwriting alongside his own, we think he was with about 20 other people, and we’re pretty sure he was using the Academy as a base for them.”

“So it didn’t come down,” Vanya said.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“ _And_ he seemed to know there were two timelines,” Ben added. “He ruled out Vanya as the cause for the apocalypse in Timeline 2 pretty confidently, from what he wrote in the margins of our book.”

“Yeah, that’s because he found all six of us dead,” Allison said. “One of his pages mentions it.”

“Where’d he find us? Here?” Luther asked.

“I don’t think so. Seems like it was after about… one or two weeks of searching the city. He didn’t have a system yet and his notes from that period are especially confusing, _and_ after finding us he doesn’t take any notes about searching. Then, later on, he has this… this weird three dimensional indexing system, so maybe if we can figure out where he continued searching the city after finding us, we can figure out where we died.”

“Why three dimensional?” Klaus asked, rubbing his eyes to stay awake. “Oh my god, did gravity stop working?”

“How would that even work?” Ben whispered.

“No,” Allison said, giving him an incredulous look. “Gravity did not stop working, that’s literally not how physics works. It seems more like…” She looked at the notes, sighing. “They must have included the floors searched for larger buildings. They took things _really_ slow. It feels kind of like… I don’t know, something was _out_ there that they were avoiding.”

“Zombies,” Klaus breathed. Sure, that was a horrifying thought, but it would be a nice twist of irony he wasn’t on the wrong end of, for once. Now _that_ was thrilling.

“Okay, that seems wild even for us,” Diego said. “Also, why are you excited by this? You don’t even like the _morgue_.”

“Yeah, but if it actually happens I’ll be dead anyway, so…” Klaus said, shrugging.

“The moon exploding sounds crazy too,” Luther interjected. “Especially from Vanya’s powers. I mean if anyone had told us that beforehand, we would have thought they were nuts.”

Diego acknowledged the point with a tilt of his head.

“So we’re going with zombie apocalypse?” Klaus said, sitting up properly and looking back and forth between everyone. “Zombies?”

“Klaus, seriously, what is wrong with you?” Diego sighed.

“I see dead people and it’s horrifying, is what’s wrong with me,” Klaus said, holding out his arms in faux innocence. “Is it so wrong to want all of humanity to share in that suffering?”

“ _What?”_ Ben asked, staring him down with all the judgment in the world.

“Not you,” Klaus said hurriedly, patting his thigh. “You weren’t suffering.”

“Not my issue, but thanks.”

“I’m just saying, if _you_ knew the world would be forced to collectively walk a mile in your shoes after your untimely death, you’d all feel pretty great about it too.”

“How do you know you weren’t killed by a zombie?” Ben asked. “You really want to die by a dead person?”

Klaus paused, starting to form words a few times before finally settling on, “No, that would be the worst possible thing I could imagine dying of.”

“Pretty sure we were shot,” Allison muttered.

“Ha, see!” Klaus said. “Oh, wait probably means Hazel and Cha-Cha, that’s like… the second worst case scenario…” He sighed. No one was listening to him anyway, instead trying to get a peek at Five’s notes.

“He wrote some speculations on ballistics near where he wrote we were dead. And also a hell of a lot of electrical circuits, whatever _that’s_ about.”

“Wait,” Vanya cut in. “If it’s sure now that I’m not the one behind this, then how does Harold lose his eye? I mean, he paid those guys to beat him up to jumpstart my powers. That would never happen in this timeline.”

“Maybe he pays to get himself beaten up as a distraction to get to Dad’s arsenal,” Klaus said. “Or something.”

Vanya frowned. “I guess, but…”

“I’ll get a warrant for the prosthetic company,” Diego said. “See if the eye’s been sold yet. If not, we can look for anyone checked into a hospital with an eye injury, maybe narrow down our search radius.”

“Sounds great,” Klaus said, yawning. “I’ve spent all day recounting the horrible deaths of _many_ innocent people, so I’m going to check out. Maybe read a nice book. Call Dave…”

“We are on the clock,” Diego reminded him.

“And _I_ am still sober,” Klaus said. “So a break here and there seems fair.”

Diego glared at him, but eventually nodded. “Sure, you’re right. But then stay with Five while you do, we need to talk to him as soon as he wakes up, see if he remembers anything about…”

“Timeline 2,” Ben volunteered.

“Right, yeah, whatever,” Diego said.

“Okay, okay,” Klaus said, waving at them. “I’ll babysit the old baby brother.” He’d hoped to hang out in basement - it was creepy as hell, but it was also guaranteed silence. On the other hand, he could probably get a phone to reach into Five’s room, while he definitely could not do that in the basement.

He really wanted to talk to Dave, if only to tell him how batshit crazy his past few days had been. Dave would probably find it fun.

He trotted up the stairs. It had been so goddamn weird to sit there with a bunch of police officers, hanging onto his every word. It would have been almost nice, if he hadn’t spent it all talking about the random people who got strangled, run over, shot in the back, shot in the face…

He sighed, pushing in the door to Five’s room, ready to say something sarcastic to his sleeping brother before he froze. The bed was empty, blankets shoved to the side. “Uh, guys?!” he yelled. “We lost Five!”

**

“New rule,” Diego muttered, switching on the lights. “Next time someone’s half dead, don’t just yell _we lost him_ at us because you don’t know where he is.”

“It was an accurate description!” Klaus whined. “Plus if he was dead, I’d be the last to know! I’d just start talking to him, probably until he was like ‘I’m dead, you moron’ or something.”

Diego rolled his eyes. “Take the left corridor, I’ve got the right.”

“Fine,” Klaus said, all but sticking his tongue out at his brother. He turned down the hall.

“Your other left,” Diego called after him. “You know what, nevermind, I’ll take left.”

“Fiiive!” Klaus said. “Hey, Fiiiiiive!” There was no way he’d managed to jump out of the house. He’d been exhausted. Less than an hour ago, Klaus wouldn’t have thought he’d be capable of walking, much less jumping. “C’mon, Five, you need bed rest and you know it!”

He turned the corner switching on the light as he went, then stopped. There in the corner, Five was slumped against the wall and snoring softly. “Huh,” Klaus noted.

After a moment of watching him and trying to figure out how he’d gotten here, Klaus gave up and squatted beside his brother. “Five? Hey, buddy, you alright there?” He shook his brother’s shoulder a little.

Five let out a familiar noise that Klaus hadn’t heard since they were kids and he’d drawn the short straw that meant he had to wake Five up in the morning. It wasn’t quite a whine, but it wasn’t a growl either, just a sleepy displeasure at the waking world. The genuine fondness that washed over him at such a small, nostalgic noise was almost too much to handle. Klaus had been shoving most of his feelings into a chaotic, drug-ridden closet for so long, and now here he was, sober as hell and feeling 13 again.

“Come on, can you stand up at all?” Klaus asked, ruffling Five’s hair. “Or am I going to have to get you in a fireman’s carry, because Luther’s the only one who can walk around with you cradled in his arms like a sleepy little princess.”

Five’s eyes cracked open. They were glazed and unfocused, and Klaus quickly shifted his hand to Five’s forehead. “Wow, you are so feverish,” he whispered.

“You think I don’t know that?” Five mumbled, trying to roll over to slump against the wall. “Go away.”

“Seriously?” Klaus asked. “Even now? Come on, man. Get on my back, I’m taking you—”

There was a ripple of light and suddenly he was holding onto thin air. “God,” he whispered to no one. “How is he such a dick?” He pushed himself to his feet. “Hey, Diego! He’s jumping!”

“What?” Diego asked, poking his head back into the main corridor as Klaus did the same. “How? He’s like five times past his limit.”

“I don’t know,” Klaus said. “Maybe he already slept it off?”

“Where’d you find him?”

“Some random corner. I don’t know if he’s doing great on the directional control, he’s got a fever of like 120.”

“Great,” Diego said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “C’mon, let’s start from the top.”

**

“Ben, I found him!” Vanya called, leaning under the table to look at her brother who was currently asleep against a chair.

Ben dashed over. “What is he doing here?”

“I think he might be sleepwalking,” Vanya said, trying to ease him out from under the table. “Stay with him, I’ll go get Luther to take him back to bed.”

Five’s lashes fluttered, and he looked at Ben and Vanya blearily through them. “Ben?” he croaked.

“Hi,” Ben said softly, feeling Five’s forehead. “Wow, you are super sick.”

“It worked,” Five mumbled.

Ben looked at Vanya sidelong. They shouldn’t be keeping secrets from each other, but some white lies were just common sense. Telling Five the apocalypse was still on when he was this sick would end up with Five trying to function like this, which would probably end up with him getting even sicker. “Yeah,” Vanya said. “Ben’s alive, I’m good, we’re all—”

A flash of blue light and Five was suddenly gone.

“Oh, shit,” Vanya said.

“Yeah, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I don’t think he’s sleepwalking,” Ben said.

“Sleep jumping,” Vanya sighed. “Great.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I had a dime for every time I wrote my favorite character with a fever causing chaos I'd be rich. 
> 
> And we'll see how much Five remembers this weekend ;)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy day-that-wasn't-and-then-was day!
> 
> I'm extremely tickled by the fact that we're in the show's timeline as we speak and I've been annoying all my friends and family with it, especially because I am 100% sold that if the world ended, it _would_ be in April, the worst month.

 “Five?” Allison called. “Five!” She pinched the bridge of her nose. They’d left him for _minutes_. How had he even had the energy to get lost so quickly? Her stomach twisted. What if he hadn’t gone away on his own? Surely they would have noticed someone breaking in, but the house was large, Harold had been in here before, and Five was essentially helpless at the moment. Allison doubted he could stand just yet.

She knew Five wasn’t a child, no matter what he looked like. She also knew he’d been ripped from the world and from life as they knew it as a child, and deep, deep down that made him vulnerable just like a child would be. She knew he’d always hated being helpless, even as a kid, had watched him gnash his teeth to bite back tears when he couldn’t jump anymore after rough missions, refuse help even when could barely crawl up the stairs to lick his wounds.

If someone had gotten their hands on him, and he was being held against his will, weak and scared, and if they _hurt_ him… Fuck, Allison was going to abandon her commitment to not use her power for personal gain and make them wish they’d never been born.

A sudden flash of light and a crash startled her out of that dark line of thought as she jumped back on instinct. “Jesus,” she said, before her brain caught up and she rushed forward. “Five!”

He’d appeared somewhere near one of the statues and had immediately fallen over, taking it down with him. He blinked around owlishly, scrambling back to his knees as though he expected to be attacked. He was swaying as he struggled to stay upright even with one hand and both knees on the floor to steady himself.

“What happened?” Allison asked urgently. “Did someone do this to you?”

“Electricity,” Five slurred, staring at the nearest lamp. “All the lights are on… I made it?”

“Five,” Allison said, hurrying to sling an arm around his shoulders and steady him. He was burning up. “How are you even jumping right now?”

Five finally looked at her, one hand coming up to touch her wrist, quickly, like he wanted to steal a touch before anything stopped him. “Allison,” he murmured. “Are you real? Alive?”

“Yes, I’m alive and real, and you’re real _sick_ ,” she said. “Come on, I can--”

And then he was gone. She dropped her arms with a groan. “Seriously?” she whispered, getting back up. “Five!”

**

Five’s jumping was quiet, but since Luther was already listening for it, he heard the small sound from the door down the hall. “Five,” he breathed, racing over to follow the sound.

Five looked up at him from where he was laying on the floor. He looked even less coherent than when they’d found him ‘drunk as a skunk.’

“Jesus, Five,” he said, helping him sit up. Five made a pained noise at the movement. “What the hell happened?”

“Ben’s…” Five mumbled, trying to focus his eyes on Luther. He waved indecipherably into the ether as though showing how Ben was not currently dead. “Did we really do it?” He nearly fell over backwards, fighting to keep his head up. “W’bout Hazel’n Cha-Cha?”

“Uh,” Luther said. He wasn’t sure what to do here. He didn’t want to lie, but he knew his brother was in no shape to start going after a pair of assassins that had nearly killed three of them together. He _also_ knew that if Five knew they were still a threat, and he was delirious enough not to realize how sick he was, he’d insist on going after them, the rest of the family would have to something drastic, like choking him out or rumoring him into staying put. “They haven’t... tried to kill us... yet…” That was technically true.

Five shivered, then vanished.

“Shit,” Luther said, hoping to god that Five wasn’t going to see the state of the assassin situation for himself. “Allison! I found him, but he’s--!”

“I know!” Allison yelled back, heading towards him while Luther did the same. “He’s jumping all over the place. And he said something about electricity and asked me if I was _real_?”

“He asked me about Hazel and Cha-Cha,” Luther said.

“Well, that makes more sense,” Allison said.

“Yeah, and if he runs after those lunatics while half dead, they’re going to take care of the other half,” Luther said.

“He can’t possibly get far. How is he even capable of using his powers at all?”

“I don’t know, but we should find the others.” They started down the stairs, only to find Diego and Klaus coming up them.

“Did you see him too?” Diego asked.

“Yeah, you guys?” Luther replied.

“He told me to go away and then disappeared,” Klaus said. “So, the usual.”

“I don’t think he has any idea what’s going on, he’s burning up,” Allison said. “Maybe Ben and Vanya had more luck.”

“We didn’t,” Vanya said from behind them. “We were just coming to find you. We saw him for a second, he recognized Ben and then he was gone.”

“Okay, all of that makes sense, but why was he talking about electricity?” Allison interjected. “Or asking if I was alive?”

“Because his…” Klaus made a face, as though making an attempt to word things delicately before realizing it was a waste of effort, “... brain is boiling out of his ears?”

“We need to find him before he hurts himself,” Luther said. “Come on, we’ll sweep from top to bottom again, and someone should check in front of the Academy, too.” He really hoped Five was either coherent or incoherent enough not to try to run off and deal with the Commission himself.

“There!” Ben said, pointing. Diego followed his finger with his eyes, then hurried after it. Luther practically leaped down the stairs to follow him.

“Five!” Diego called, skidding to a stop before the sofa Five had thankfully appeared on this time.

“Oh, thank god,” Luther breathed. “I thought you might be trying to go after Hazel and Cha-Cha.”

Five stared at them, swaying dangerously. “Hazel and _what?_ Are you guys fever dreams or not?” he asked, sounding desperate and annoyed at once.

“Uh,” Luther said. “Not?”

“That was _rhetorical_ ,” Five said, remarkably condescending for someone who couldn’t keep both eyes focused on the same spot at a time. He staggered to his feet, and Luther lurched forward to put his arms out so he could catch Five if he fell. “I feel like shit, _you’re_ all talking gibberish and I _know_ when I’m--”

“Five, we’re not fever dreams!” Diego snapped. “Now just breathe and try to stay in one--” He cut off as Five pitched forward, both Diego and Luther diving to catch him. Before Five could land in Diego’s arms, however, he was gone again, but this time Luther heard the thud only a few feet away. “--place.” Diego sighed. “At least his jumps are getting shorter. I hope.”

Luther leaped over the couch to hurry to where he’d heard the thud. Vanya and Allison were sitting Five up while Five was looking progressively more frazzled.

“Like I was saying,” Diego sighed, “we’re not fever dreams, so just stay put.”

“Who the hell said fever dreams?” Five asked, trying to sit up on his own but ultimately flopping against Allison while Vanya brushed his hair out of his face.

“You did. Like, three seconds ago,” Diego replied, visibly seconds from blowing a fuse in anger.

Five squinted at him. “Oh, right,” he mumbled. “I did say that.” His voice cracked with bleary confusion. “Don’t remember why I--”

Another shiver, and he was gone, though this time Klaus was near enough to catch him before he hit the ground, at least slowing the fall. Five went limp against him, too distracted by his own hands to care about the fact that Klaus was still trying to regain his balance without dropping Five. “Am I a _child_?”

“What?” Diego blurted. “Klaus was right, his brain’s boiling, I’m getting Mom.”

“Mom?” Five echoed, almost hopefully. That was weird, for him. “Good, yes, Mom will get it.”

“Wait, wait,” Ben said, waving them away so he could squat in front of Five. “I have an idea.” He glanced at Klaus, who had mostly stabilized with Five in his arms, then back at Five. “Five, how old _should_ you be?”

Five squinted at him. “27, _obviously_.”

“Boiling,” Diego confirmed, turning to go. “Just try to keep him from concussing himself until I get ba-a--oh _shit_.” Five poofed in front of him, giving him barely enough time to throw himself under Five before he fell flat on his face onto the hard ground. “For fuck’s sake.”

“Okay, right, and now answer the question again,” Ben said, looking far too excited for the situation at hand.

“What question?” Five said, belligerent as ever.

“How old are you, chronologically?”

“58,” Five snapped. “I’ve only told you a _million times_.”

“Yeah, but you _literally_ just said 27,” Diego growled.

“I don’t know why I said that,” Five said, like it was their fault for having been stupid enough to listen to him seconds earlier.

“Because you’re currently two versions of yourself at once!” Ben said. “Or… or like… oscillating between two versions of yourself.”

Luther frowned at him. “Wait, what?”

“That’s not how… _that’s_ …” Five said, furrowing his brow. “ _Maybe_ that’s…” He made a small noise of frustration that was almost cute. “I don’t _know_ , shut up.”

“Yeah, with that reaction, Ben’s totally right,” Klaus muttered. “However, time travel shenanigans aside, I cannot believe that _I_ have to be the one stress that Five’s brain is _still_ boiling and we need to _do_ something about that.”

Five rippled away, and everyone scrambled to catch him again. Luckily, this time he hadn’t made it more than a foot away from where he was before, and Vanya could break his fall enough for Luther to run in and hold him up.

“Okay,” Diego said, standing slowly and backing away. “Just. Keep him from... From braining himself. And I will be. Right. Back.” He turned the corner and ran.

“I think he’s slowing down,” Ben said.

“Shit,” Five mumbled. “You’re all from timeline 2… and _I’m_ from… _what?”_ He groaned. “My brain isn’t… doing the quantum physics thing…” He looked at Ben blearily. “What’d you say about boiling?”

“Yeah,” Ben said, helping Five to lay down in his lap. “You’re sick as hell, but you’re getting it. Sort of. You can do the math later.”

“Now just _please_ try to stay in one place,” Klaus pleaded. “I will _pay_ you to just stay _put.”_

“Sure,” Five breathed, staring at the floor. “Just shut up so I can think about whether the concept of self has an eigenstate.”

Luther sighed. “Well, at least he’s consistent in every timeline.”

**

It was a challenge to get Five up the stairs with his erratic jumping, like an absurd game of catch played while walking with a 100 pound ball with too many limbs, but eventually they managed to get him back in bed. The boys had decided on surrounding him, one on each side of him to keep him steady while Grace tried to get fever medication into him.

“He needs to rest,” Vanya murmured to Allison. “He can’t do that if he’s jumping back and forth like this.”

Allison made a noise as if to say, _No shit_. “Do you have any ideas? Because honestly I’m not even sure if he can wear himself out or if this is some kind of weird… quantum… thing that doesn’t even follow the normal rules of his powers.”

“My pills,” Vanya said. “If there are any still left, we could try to… maybe give him a break from his powers until they settle down.”

Allison sighed. “Even if he agreed to that, _which he won’t,_ he’ll definitely be on edge if we do that. He needs to rest, and if he feels defenseless he’ll keep himself up even if he doesn’t mean to.” She looked at Five. “He’s done that every time he’s been sick since he was seven.”

Vanya frowned. “I have an idea. But let me check if I can find any pills in the first place.”

She ran off. Allison chewed her lip, watching Five. Fluctuating like this must have been like a person being unable to stop skipping after having run two marathons back to back. From the greenish tinge to his sweaty face, she was pretty sure he was shivering back and forth between places and states so much it was causing him pain. If Vanya had a good idea, Allison was almost to the point that she found herself considering rumoring Five into not noticing he’d taken her pill.

Guilt gnawed at her over the pure thought. She’d messed up so much by trying to fix things with rumors. But this was different. Five _needed_ sleep. How bad did the situation have to get before it was okay to use a rumor to help him? She heard crashing coming from Vanya’s room before Vanya finally returned. “One bottle,” she said, slightly breathless. She opened it up and peeked inside. “With… three pills. That’s a day and half.”

“If that much doesn’t help we’ll have to think of something better anyway,” Allison muttered. “Hopefully just getting some more sleep will help him stabilize into… something.” She had no idea what it meant that he was two people at once, or if that was even what was happening, or what the end result of that would be.

Would he remember anything from his other life?

Vanya nodded. “Agreed.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Allison asked.

“You should rumor him,” Vanya said.

Allison cringed. “Vanya, I don’t know if I _can_ …”

“Wait, hear me out,” Vanya said, holding up her hands. “Not to take the pills or whatever. To relax and get some sleep. And we’ll ask him about it first.”

Allison paused. “Okay,” she said slowly, realizing what Vanya meant. “Yeah, okay, that I can do. _If_ he agrees.”

“C’mon,” Vanya said, gesturing for Allison to follow her before sitting on Five’s bed. “Five? Hey, Five, look at me.”

Five shuddered, jumping half a foot onto Ben instead of Luther. Ben sat him up and pointed him at Vanya.

“Allison and I are pretty sure you can sleep this whole fluctuating thing off if you can just stop… fluctuating for a little bit.”

Five squinted at her, impressively disgruntled for someone who looked so young. “I don’t really have to tell you the multitude of logical fallacies in what you just said, right?”

“I’ve got three pills left from what Dad used to suppress my powers,” Vanya said. “Enough to give you a break from this for a day and a half.”

Five took a moment to focus his eyes on her and comprehend what she was saying. “Fuck off,” he snarled, the moment it clicked.

“Just take one,” Vanya pleaded. “And then Allison will rumor you into relaxing so you can go right to sleep.”

“What part of ‘fuck off’ did you not get?” Five spat.

“Five,” Vanya said, her voice soft but uncharacteristically unyielding. “You _need_ to sleep. I know you’re used to fending for yourself, but right now you need to trust _us_ to protect you. It’s the fastest way for you to get back on your feet, because right now, you can’t take care of yourself with or without your powers.”

Five shuddered and nearly flickered off the bed before Luther caught him, easily lifting him back. “But…” he said, though it was weaker this time. “I…”

“It’s three pills,” Allison said. “A day and a half. If that’s not enough time, we’ll have to think of something better, and hopefully your fever will go down by then.”

Klaus made a long suffering face as Five suddenly found himself in Klaus’ lap, all but headbutting him in the nose. Klaus turned away with a raised brow and pushed Five back to arm’s length. “He’s a safety hazard even when he can’t do shit. A real prodigy,” he whispered to Ben, who smacked him in the arm.

“God, _fine_ ,” Five spat. “Just give me it.”

Grace handed Vanya a cup while Vanya dug out a pill to give to Five. She helped him put the pill in his mouth, then lifted the water to his lips. He drank like he was dying of thirst, then eyed Allison in what almost looked like nerves. Nerves like a trapped rattlesnake, maybe. His glassy eyes flickered up and down her entire body, jaw clenching when Allison sat down beside him, careful not to make sudden moves.

“You sure you’re okay with this?” she asked.

“Of course I’m not. Do you have a better idea?” Five muttered. He gave her a sullen look. “Just do it.”

Allison sighed. “Okay.” She took his hand and squeezed it slightly. Five’s suspicion only seemed to deepen at that. His hand tensed like Allison’s touch hurt him. She put her hand lightly on his clothed elbow instead. “How about… _I heard a rumor_ that when you closed your eyes, you felt so relaxed that you could just sink into the pillows and gently drift off into sleep until you were better rested.”

She watched as Five’s eyes lit up with the rumor’s power. His lashes fluttered, like he was avoiding closing his eyes and activating the rumor. She smiled at him and fluffed the pillows up around him. “Five, we’re all here, we’re all watching over you, okay?”

“You’re not alone anymore,” Ben said. “I know it’s really hard to actually believe that after so much time, but we’re not leaving you alone for a second and nothing bad is going to happen to you.”

Five shivered again, jumping a little closer to the edge of the bed. Allison stopped him with an arm and pushed him back to the pillows. He blinked quickly, like the suggestion might not take hold if he did it fast enough, then sighed, blinking again slower. He looked up at Allison, hazy eyed, then _finally_ let his eyes flutter shut.

He shuddered one more time, space bending around him like his body was still trying to jump, but he didn’t move, limbs uncoiling as he dropped back into sleep.

“Well, that was weird,” Klaus said. “The kid really needs to decide on an age.”

“I think we should maybe… not leave Five alone anymore?” Allison suggested.

“Yeah, you think?” Luther said, snippy in a way that told Allison he’d been worried sick about Five. “Will he stay put now?”

“Let’s hope so,” Allison said, brushing his hair out of his face. “But I’ll stay with him just in case.”

Grace leaned down to feel his forehead. “I’ll get some ice,” she said, smiling at them.

“Thanks, Mom,” Diego said. Luther echoed him, watching her go.

“Yeah, I’ll stay too,” Ben said. He was already sitting cross legged on the bed.

“Me three,” Vanya said softly.

 “I’m going set up a place to gather what we find out from Eudora,” Diego said. “She says I can’t work the case myself, but she’ll give me information, so…” He shrugged.

“Ooh, a corkboard like in the detective shows!” Klaus said. “I’ll help, I’ve always wanted to stare at one of those thoughtfully.”

Luther nodded. “Yeah, I’ll help too.”

**

Allison sighed, turning the page to her notebook, which didn’t even seem like it contained words anymore. A small snore broke her out of the dazed attempts she was making at reading, and she looked down at Five, feeling a smile tug at the corners of her mouth.

“He used to sleep like this as a kid, remember?” Allison said, smiling despite herself. Five had rolled onto his stomach, sprawled out like a starfish and drooling onto the pillow. He looked more peaceful than he had since he’d first reappeared. All at once, he made her miss Claire and miss being as young as he looked. She patted his head, stroking hair out of his face to get a better look at his face. The same face as when he’d gone missing. “God, he looks so young. Makes me remember a lot of things.”

“Life didn’t feel as hard before Five left, did it?” Ben said.

“It was then, too,” Allison murmured. “We just… didn’t realize that we could lose one another.”

“I was so much lonelier without him,” Vanya remarked. She had taken up residence in an armchair, her feet up on Five’s bed. “He was pretty good about talking to me, even if I wasn’t included in stuff. I think he liked that I didn’t pose competition.”

“I think the fact that we didn’t pose competition made it easier for him to admit he could like people,” Ben said. “He always acted like that sort of thing could be used against him. Since he was like… six, remember?”

Allison snorted. “That’s true, he acted like we’d kill him at the first sign of weakness sometimes.” She smiled. “But it was always obvious he cared about us. He played along every time we went to say goodnight to Dad, remember? Even though he told us Dad would never say it back.” She’d done it mostly for Diego and Luther. They’d held out hope for Dad far longer than she had.

“He’s a weird kid,” Vanya said. “Always was.” She sighed. “I guess he’s a weird adult now.”

“Oh, in a lot of ways I think he’s still that 13 year old brat we all knew,” Allison said, ruffling his hair. He made a small noise. His skin wasn’t as scorching hot anymore.

“Aren’t we all,” Ben murmured. He slid down until his head was near the small of Five’s back, yawning as he read.

Space warped feebly around Five, though he didn’t stir.

“Shit,” Vanya said, sitting up. “We should give him another pill. Can you wake him up?”

“No, but I’ve got a plan. I think,” Allison said. She wanted to say, _I’m a mom_ , but it wasn’t like raising a totally ordinary toddler was anything comparable to this. “Give me the fever reliever too.” Vanya handed it over while Allison pulled Five into her arms so his head was on her shoulder.

“Is that a good idea?” Ben asked.

“Swallowing is reflexive, right?” Allison asked. “As long as we take it slow…”

“God, give me,” Ben said, taking the medicine from her hand. “At least break them up.” He snapped the pills into a few pieces, then carefully slipped them into Five’s mouth. Vanya hurried to lift the glass of water to his lips, tipping it slowly until Five swallowed.

“There we go,” Allison cooed. She hoped Five wouldn’t remember it. The tone was reflex - after Claire she didn’t think she could ever nurse someone through any kind of illness without treating them like a toddler at least a little. And Five was still a child in so many ways, not just in his appearance.

She held him firmly, watching closely to make sure he wasn’t choking on the pills. He snuffled slightly, leaning into her shoulder, and Allison suddenly wasn’t sure if she ever wanted to let him go. “God, I should call my daughter,” she said. “I think I’m going… _mom crazy_ without her.”

Vanya laughed. “That’s not a thing.”

“Well, I’m feeling it.”

“It’s just because he looks tiny,” Vanya said. Her smile faded into something pensive. “And he’s our brother who vanished seventeen years ago.”

“Our little brother,” Ben teased.

“Get that out of your system before we wakes up, unless you’re ready to die again,” Vanya said. She paled. “Sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“I was stuck with Klaus,” Ben said. “You think I haven’t heard every single dead joke _anyone_ could _possibly_ make?”

“Right,” Vanya said, relaxing. “But still…” She sighed, rubbing her forehead. “Yeah. You’re right, I can’t say anything ruder than Klaus’ entire… thing.”

Ben snorted. “It’s good to hear you teasing, honestly,” he said. “Feels like we did a good job making you feel like part of the family.”

Vanya gave him a tired grin. “Right. I forgot being an asshole is a prerequisite in this household.”

Five stirred a little, making a small squeak at the back of his throat as he nuzzled his way into a more comfortable spot on Allison’s shoulder. Despite herself, she laughed, looking at Vanya helplessly. “He _is_ so tiny,” she whispered.

“It was nice knowing you, Allison,” Ben said.

“Shut up, this is my only chance to enjoy it! I’ll never get to do this after he wakes up,” Allison said, hugging him close. “If I so much as look like I’m trying to hug him after he’s conscious again, he’ll stab me in the face. It’s now or never.” She looked at Vanya and Ben, noting their wistful looks.  “Oh, just get in here, quick.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, all this talk about how Five will murder his family is actually foreshadowing for when some poor unfortunate soul has to break it to him that there's still an apocalypse.
> 
> Also, I am, in fact, trained in quantum physics, but no, that does NOT make writing "convoluted things Five could say to stop making any sense to people" any easier.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy end of the world day, everyone!
> 
> (Also please check out this [playlist](https://8tracks.com/bloomiii/an-eye-for-an-eye) BloomIII made for this fic! I'm ridiculously excited about it because I am absolutely terrible at picking music for scenes (so pretty much anyone is free to tell me what music they would associate with any part of this fic, for future reference, because I promise you I was writing all of this to garbage music that didn't fit the mood at all).

There were multiple unfortunate things about how Five woke up.

First, he had the headache to end all headaches. 45 years in a barren wasteland where the air was mostly ash and there was no one to stop him from drinking, and he hadn’t ever had a headache this bad. It was like ten time travel hangovers at once, and the only upside was that the pain was bad enough it took his mind off the itching.

Second, his siblings had somehow taken his earlier fever as an invitation to _cuddle_ , because Allison was sleeping on one shoulder, Ben was sleeping under the other, and Vanya had sprawled out horizontally on the bed with her head on his chest.

If he couldn’t jump out of this situation, he was going to murder all three of them.

He took a deep breath and managed a small jump, just to the foot of the bed. Even that had him so dizzy he nearly found himself face down on the floor, but several minutes of gripping the mattress and breathing, and the world almost stopped spinning. The jump hadn’t done many favors for head, though.

He staggered to the door, gripping the railing of the stairs for dear life as he took them one by one, trying to breathe.

Last night had been… strange. His memory of it wasn’t very clear - he had probably been extremely delirious - but in between the bleary recollections of his siblings talking to him, he could remember flashes from what felt like another life. He couldn’t remember shit about it now, though. That was unfortunate. He felt like it might have been useful.

He staggered his way towards the kitchen. He was so hungry, he was considering just skipping the sandwich and eating peanut butter straight out of the jar. God, he hoped they still had peanut butter here at home. After his letter, he sort of hoped Vanya had stopped making him sandwiches for no reason, but peanut butter kept well enough, if they’d restocked it every so often.

Leaning hard on the wall, he focused on putting one foot after the other. He was so absorbed in the surprisingly difficult process he almost missed Diego, Luther and Klaus bickering about something in the living room. He nearly fell over trying to back up and lean in the door, but there was some urgency in their voices that didn’t sit well with him.

“The hell are you three on about?” he croaked.

Everyone stopped talking very quickly. Luther threw something large behind the couch with a crash, though Five’s peripheral vision wasn’t participating well enough to figure out what. His best guess was one of the chalkboards that Dad kept around sometimes for lessons. Diego stared at Luther in disbelief and offense, and Luther shifted awkwardly, clearly knowing full well how stupid he’d been.

Klaus, however, whirled around to look at Five, clearly holding something behind his back. “Hey, buddy,” he said, too casual to be anything near casual.

“What are you holding?” Five demanded, narrowing his eyes. He looked Klaus up and down. He looked like he’d had sex with a unicorn after a business meeting. Diego was also wearing a suit, and Luther was definitely smaller. And unless Five had been hallucinating last night, Ben was now alive, which were all good signs, and yet everyone was looking at him like they had bad news they didn’t want to tell him.

“Me? Nothing,” Klaus said. He seemed to notice immediately that wasn’t going to work, and put on a somber face. “Drugs. So many drugs. I tried _so_ hard to stay sober, but I just…” He made a regretful face. “In fact, we’re having an intervention right now, but it’s going very well, so no need to worry yourself about it.”

Diego and Luther made an attempt to corroborate with awkward nods, but neither of them had anything like a poker face, nor did they appear convinced that they wanted to go along with Klaus’ obvious lie.

Klaus grinned uncomfortably. “Do you want a sandwich?”

Five was too exhausted to even _try_ to pretend he didn’t want to murder his brother. He gripped the back of the chair closest to him to stay upright and extended his hand. “Give me it,” he said.

“Uh,” Klaus said. “No.”

“Five,” Diego said carefully. “C’mon, you’re barely standing, at least eat something first.”

“Show. Me.” It was a small miracle that he didn’t fall over as he stumbled at Klaus, trying to get his hand out from behind him.

Klaus, seemingly on impulse, stuck his hand above his head. Five saw red. It had been annoying enough when they were at least physically the same age, but now that Klaus was even taller and Five was still stuck in his 13 year old body, he was one very thin straw away from stabbing his brother in the throat with the nearest object if he didn’t hand over whatever was in his hand.

Klaus looked down at him like a severe parent to a toddler. He was _dead_. “I’ll give it to you after you’ve eaten.”

“No,” Five hissed. He knew what it was. He could tell by the way Klaus was looking at him, the stupid _concern_. Klaus had been the only one to see Five’s way of coping with the apocalypse being seemingly over, and it showed on his face, clear as day. Five just needed to _see_ it. He needed to know it wasn’t just in his head. “ _Now_.”

Klaus groaned, staring at the ceiling like he wanted a sign from god. Then, finally, he stepped forward, placing his fist in Five’s hand and then opening it, slowly and carefully, like he was hoping Five would relent before he handed it over and go eat and drink before pushing this matter.

Five kept his eyes on Klaus’ until he finally uncurled his fingers. Cool glass rolled against Five’s palm as Klaus finally gave up and stepped away. Five pulled his own hand back before anyone could see him shaking, looking down at the eye. It stared back at him. Same eye. Same color. Same serial number. He smelled smoke, the air so thick with it that he wanted to retch.

“Shit, shit,” he heard from the door as Vanya, Allison and Ben skidded into the kitchen after him. “Sorry, we must have dozed off…” They sounded a million miles away.

“Are you all legitimately this _fucking_ stupid?” Five gritted out. Why didn’t they _get_ it? They’d seen it happen, how was that not _enough?_ What would it take, to see the lifeless corpses like Five had? To wander around in the graveyard of their family, alone for decades?

“Five,” Diego warned.

“The apocalypse is still on, and you just decided to let me _sleep?_ ” Five snarled. It was a mistake to come back here. God, what was the point of trying to save people who were too stupid to realize they would all _die_ , they would all lay here, cold corpses in the ruins of this house… He pushed back the images that rose in his mind. “We don’t have _time_ for you all to baby me! I am not. Fucking. _Thirteen!”_

“Five,” Allison said, but Five wasn’t going to stop until they finally got it through their thick skulls.

“I don’t need your help! I don’t need any of you to treat me like a kid, I need you all to _focus_ on stopping this!” He gripped the eye hard. “How can I explain this to all you _idiots_ before you get it? You will all _die_. Everyone is going to _die._ I am going to be the only living person on the fucking _planet_ if you guys can’t stop acting like fucking _children_.”

“Five!” Vanya shouted. That made Five hesitate. If she was still the cause, he couldn’t be sloppy around her. “You had a fever of 104. You were all but dying.”

“So give me the strongest fever reliever money can buy and get out of my way!” Five hissed back at her.

“You didn’t remember how old you were! You couldn’t stay in one place for longer than a minute!” Vanya shouted back, the pictures and chairs around them rattling for a moment before Vanya clenched her fists, taking deep breaths until they stopped. “You were jumping in and out of thinking we were fever dreams because you couldn’t remember what _timeline_ you were in…” She let out a sharp noise of frustration. “I know how hard it is to hear this, I really do, but you weren’t going to be any help to us!” She paused, lowering her voice. “You would have just slowed us down.”

Five sat down on the sofa he’d been leaning on without entirely meaning to. He wanted to insist that it didn’t matter _what_ he remembered. He stared at the eye. It was exactly the same. If it was exactly the same, the apocalypse _had_ to be the same. And yet, he had a nagging feeling from somewhere he couldn’t identify that knew Vanya was right. Whatever future he’d come from this time around, it wasn’t the same, and he couldn’t remember it now.

“Do you remember the apocalypse from this timeline?” Allison asked. “It’s… different.”

“No,” Five muttered. He could only remember the Academy in ash, finding four bodies he didn’t recognize - didn’t _want_ to recognize - until he saw their tattoos. He could remember it all too clearly, and he tried to focus on the room. The sounds of everyone shuffling around, cars outside, the roof over them. If he had a flashback now, his siblings would never get back on track. “Different how?”

“Whatever happened this time, there were survivors,” Allison said, pulling a small notebook out of her jacket pocket and handing it over.

Five flipped through it. The calculations were familiar, but there were multiple sets of writing, tangents that had taken him months between foraging all on one page like he’d done them in one sitting. He brushed his fingers over the different writing. It felt familiar, and yet he couldn’t remember the person behind them. The _people_. “Then why is _this_ still here?” he asked, looking back to the eye. He glanced at Vanya.

“We don’t exactly know yet,” Diego said. “What we _do_ know is that Hazel and Cha-Cha broke Harold Jenkins out of prison years ago. We _might_ have gotten a tip on Hazel, but I’m still waiting to hear back from the guys who went to check up on it.”

“Did any of you make it?” Five asked. He refused to contemplate how much easier living in the end of the world would be if he’d had any of his family with him.

“No,” Allison said. “We’ve been trying to narrow down where it happened, see if that gives us any clue.” She took the notebook and opened it to a new page. “Yesterday, you seemed to have flashes of your memories from timeline 2. Any of this feel familiar? I’m pretty sure it’s a code to map out what parts of the city you’d searched for supplies and survivors.”

“Nominally,” Five said. He felt as though he’d seen all these pages in a dream, like déjà vu. “But I don’t remember what they mean.” He frowned at some of the unfamiliar diagrams. He’d been working on something else other than getting home, which was bizarre, but… It clicked, suddenly, and he wished it hadn’t. “Mom.”

“Huh?” Diego asked.

Five showed him the page. “I found Mom. Must have fixed her up, because these are her circuits.” His throat felt tight. He smelled ash again, the memory of that moment he’d realized he was alone flashing before him. It was a waste of time to yearn for an alternate reality where he’d at least had Grace, and yet it was impossible not to think about it.

Allison squeezed his shoulder. The yearning he was trying not to dignify with a response surged in him at the touch so hard he felt like he was going to throw up, and he slapped her hand away before it could get any worse. She held up her hands in a peace offering, but he couldn’t look her in the eye.

“Okay,” Allison said, softly. “Look, we’ll keep working on this, but first, you need to eat, or you _will_ pass out.”

“I’ll make you a sandwich,” Vanya offered.

She’d used her powers while yelling at him, and then regained control, he realized. “So I take it you’re no longer the cause for the apocalypse?” he muttered, before she could leave.

“Not that I know of,” Vanya said, turning around.

“You found her dead with the rest of us,” Allison said, excruciatingly gentle.

“Shot,” Five intoned, easily flipping to the right page. He wasn’t sure if it was muscle memory or just because it was the most worn, like he’d returned to it over and over again. The words, _Found them. All six dead,_  stared back at him, as much as his alternate self had tried to scribble over it with equations narrowing down the time periods he could feasibly jump to to stop it and various thoughts on ballistics that could only mean one thing. “Hazel and Cha-Cha?”

“Seems pretty likely,” Allison said.

“Especially since we think Harold is with them,” Diego added.

Five nodded, letting silence fall over them. Vanya cleared her throat and left to get him food.

He’d succeeded. He’d accomplished everything he’d meant to do. He’d given Vanya control, had kept Ben alive, had presumably brought the family together, and the apocalypse was still on. No matter what he did…

“Hey,” Klaus said, pulling up a chair. “Look, don’t make any sweeping predictions about the future on an empty stomach. I know it probably feels really bleak, but…”

“Just shut up, Klaus,” Five said, though he was painfully aware that he didn’t have much clout to put behind it.

Klaus picked up all too easily on the exhaustion in his tone. “Sure thing, buddy,” he said, moving to pat Five’s shoulder before meeting his eyes and thinking better of it.

**

“Okay. Love you,” Diego said, hanging up slowly as though he couldn’t bear to let go of the phone. “Okay, new twist. The tip we got for Hazel seems to match the description Klaus gave the sketch artist to a T, but… otherwise we’re not sure.”

“Why? Where’d they find him?” Five asked, head snapping up with no hesitation. He was sitting on the floor, leaned against the couch, and had been worryingly preoccupied with the backpack they’d found him with, turning it around in his hands over and over. They’d finally given it to him after he’d scarfed down a whole plate of sandwiches, and now it was all he seemed to be capable of thinking about.

Ben had been trying to think of a good way to interject with concern that wouldn’t have Five at his throat immediately.

“A bird sanctuary. No sign of Harold or Cha-Cha, just a lady. The team checking up on the tip said she looked about as non-threatening as a person can.”

“Older, blonde?” Five asked without looking up. “Thin, looks like she makes donuts for a living?”

“Well,” Diego said, blinking at him in confusion, “I don’t know about the last one, but the rest fits the description, yeah.”

“Huh,” Five said, some of his dry humor creeping back into his tone. “Son of a bitch retired.” He bounced the backpack in his hands a few times and went back to staring at it. “Of course, that probably means Cha-Cha’s new partner is Harold Jenkins. Now with temporal assassin training.”

“Which entails what, exactly?” Diego asked.

“Don’t know,” Five said. “Never needed it.” He smiled with equal parts pride and bitterness. “I’m a natural, after all.” He held his hand out. “Give me a knife.”

Diego frowned, but slid one out of his jacket and handed it over.

Five dug it into the back pocket of the backpack, cutting through the material carefully. He then turned the backpack upside down, letting a pile of papers fall out.

“Shit,” Ben said. How had they missed that?

Five leaned forward to pick them up. There was a small book, a manila file and a large envelope. Five inspected the book first, snorting a little. “Thanks, Ben,” he said.

Ben raised a brow, holding a hand out for the book. Five handed it over. _A Framework for the Quantum Physics of Time Travel, A Condensed Version,_ it read. “By Dr. Ben Hargreeves,” he said. He flipped it open.

_For Number Five. Hope it helps_ , the acknowledgements read. Ben laughed quietly to himself. That explained the doctorate.

Five had notes here too. It took only a few moments skimming the book before Ben found a large circle in red pen, followed by a large, red _WRONG_ and a whole page of equations written over the text of the book. He laughed, turning it around to show Five.

Amazingly, Five responded with a practically genuine smile at that. “Well, if you’re wrong you’re wrong,” he said, opening the file next. “Shit.”

Diego looked up. “What?”

“Harold’s file,” Five said. “I had it with me.”

“You warned us about him in this timeline,” Ben said. “So maybe…”

“Yeah, but where did I find this? Why did I even care about it?” Five muttered. He closed the folder and inspected it closer. “There.” He pointed at a small set of numbers in the corner. “This is one of the area codes. I must have found it somewhere and didn’t want to forget where.”

“So it could be a point of reference for the codes,” Klaus blurted.

“Yeah, except we don’t know where I found it,” Five said. He sounded more like himself now, focused but constantly frustrated with everything and everyone.

“Police station where I work?” Diego offered. “Right now I think Eudora has it, so…”

“But only because you know the world is ending,” Five said. “Without all of us interfering, why would you have…?”

“Dad’s death?” Ben offered. “If we suspected it was foul play the first time around…”

Diego nodded. “And naturally we would look into Harold as our first suspect, since Five told us about him.”

“I did warn you pretty clearly about him, even if I didn’t say why,” Five muttered. He sighed. “I guess that makes sense. But that means you were already looking for him the first time around, and it got all of you killed, so we’re going to have to be cautious.”

“First time around we didn’t know he’d become a time travelling assassin,” Diego said. “Now we do.”

“We still don’t know what he’s capable of,” Five said. “If he replaced Hazel, they probably spent the rest of Hazel’s contract before he retired doing jobs so Hazel could make sure he was a suitable replacement. They could have been working for any amount of time before coming back to make sure the apocalypse happens.”

“Shit, you’re right,” Diego said.

“ _But_ ,” Five said, “in this timeline, I never joined the Commission, did I? So _they_ don’t know about _me_ either.”

“Right,” Ben murmured.

Five set aside the file, hurriedly going for the envelope next. “Let’s see what this one is hiding,” he murmured, slipping it open and peering inside. He froze.

Ben leaned in. That was not a look he’d seen on Five’s face before, a total loss at what to do or say. “What is it?”

Five reached in and pulled a photo out, staring at it like it was going to bite.

Diego hurried over to look as well.

It was a family photo. All six of them, Grace, Eudora, Helen and a little girl Ben guessed was Claire from how she was sitting in Allison’s arms. They all looked happy.

“Pictures,” Five said, voice unbearably quiet. “I don’t think any survived the fires in my timeline, but…” He looked into the envelope. There seemed to be several dozen pictures in it.

“You okay?” Ben asked, but Five was gone, envelope and all.

“I think we can give him a second,” Diego said quietly, picking up the file. “I’ll go give this to Allison.”

Klaus watched him go, then leaned over to Ben. “I think it’s time for us to mercilessly worry about and care for our little Number Five until we become the bane of his existence, what do you think?”

“I think I’m rubbing off on you, is what I think,” Ben said.

Klaus grinned. “ _Marvelous.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is literally just Five trying to think up the answers to the pile of questions everyone has while our now full sober Klaus runs laps around him in terms of emotional intelligence, thus _driving Five out of his goddamn mind._


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many of you are leaving comments about "poor Five" and I am just sitting here with my 10 buffer chapters, staring at how each one makes things so much worse for Five until like... the last two, maybe? And wondering at what point I will just get murdered for my fictional crimes.
> 
> It's gonna be fun. Can't wait to be murdered.

Allison yawned. She’d either been reading Five’s notes or trying to think of a good way to solve his indexing system for far too long now, and it was a kind of exhaustion she wasn’t used to. She was loathe to waste any time, but she needed some food and possibly some coffee while Luther went out to get them a map and a guidebook of the city that they could use to map out the city.

She wasn’t alone in the kitchen when she stepped inside, which wasn’t surprising. Five was probably making another cup of coffee.

“Hey, Five,” she started, before she stopped short. Five was currently pocketing the keys to the car.

He nodded at her absently.

“Where are you going?” she asked, eyes narrowed.

“Last time, when we were onto him, Harold took off to his grandmother’s cabin,” Five said. “I’m checking it out.”

“Alone?”

Five looked up at her, shrugging like there was nothing special about it. “I’ll have time to rest in the car while I drive, so my powers should be working practically like normal by the time I get there.”

“Five, Diego has people on that,” Allison said.

“Well, none of them know about the Commission,” Five said, smiling tersely. “I do. I’ll find anything relevant a great deal faster than they would.”

“He’s not going to be there,” she said. “Five, things have changed. The Commission isn’t going to hole up in some guys’ grandmother’s cabin.”

Five bit his tongue in acrid frustration. “Don’t you get it?” he asked. “The timeline is… rhyming. We changed everything, and yet I still end up with the eye, you still end up dead. The cabin is where he got Vanya’s powers to break out of her. It’s where _you_ nearly died, so it _has_ to be important.”

“We agreed to work together,” Allison said.

“Well, I’m delegating,” Five said, sarcastic. “You all can figure out my code and I’m going to find Harold Jenkins before he murders all of you. Again.” He turned to go.

“No, you’re not,” Allison snapped. “You’re not running off on us again. We’re working together, whether you like it or not.”

Five stopped in his tracks, turning slowly to give her a biting glare. “Why don’t you rumor me into it?” he said. “Since clearly you think I’m a _child_.”

The unsaid words were all too loud in the tense air between them. Allison was one wrong breath away from trying to leap across the room to slap him. Instead, she took a long step closer, pulling herself out to her full height so she could look down on him as much as possible. “If you bring Claire into this,” she warned, taking half a beat to think of just what would make it clear to Five how serious she was, “then you better be ready for me to say some very hurtful things about Delores.”

The anger and fear that flitted over Five’s face at that broke Allison’s heart a little, but if he was going to be a dick, he had to face the consequences. “You wouldn’t dare,” he hissed. She wondered if he knew, somewhere, that Delores wasn’t real to the rest of them, that what Allison wanted to say was, _It’d be a lot easier to believe you don’t need anyone if you hadn’t imagined an entire person for yourself out of desperation._

“Try me,” she hissed back.

Five shifted under her gaze, like he wanted to run or jump away but also wanted to fight her on principle alone. “We’re wasting time,” he spat, finally. “Working together may have been the way to fix Vanya, but we don’t have time for all seven of us to get stuck trying to understand years of my work that I can’t remember.” The way he said _remember_ felt made Allison’s heart clench. “I can get more done on my own.”

“Is that why when you had people around you in the apocalypse, you got back here 31 _years_ earlier?” Allison said.

Five moved quickly, but Allison wasn’t even trying to put up a fight. She let Five grab her jacket and slam her against the wall, eyes burning. “Shut up!”

“You know I’m right,” she said quietly.

His face twisted, biting back a snarl, but finally he pushed away from her and instead gripped the nearest chair, bowing his head.

She sighed, sliding down until she was leaning on the counter. She watched him, waiting for him to say something else, but he stayed silent, breathing steadily through his nose like he was trying to calm himself. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Irrelevant,” Five muttered.

“It’s not irrelevant to _me,”_ Allison said. “We care about you, Five. You get that, right?”

Five sighed, lifting his head to look at her with all the phlegmatic reluctance of an irritated teenager. “It’s irrelevant because the answer is never going to change until we _stop_ this,” he said. “And you wasting what little time we have to do that so you can ask a question you already know the answer to over and over?” He narrowed his eyes at her, flicking his head in irritation. “Doesn’t help me.”

Well, that was more honest than Allison had been expecting. It was a start, at least. “If we figure out your indexing system, we can find out where we all died,” she said. “We were all together, we _left_ the Academy together, we had the eye, there must be something there.”

Five looked away, quiet, with a drawn look.

“We need you here, Five,” Allison said. “I know this was a different version of you, but you’re the only person who really knows how you think. You might be able to help us solve this _quickly_.”

Five sighed. His jaw worked as he thought through something. “Do you ever have a dream in which you got something you wanted?” he asked, finally. “You wake up and you can’t remember the dream but it still takes you too long to remind yourself that the real world doesn’t—“ He stopped short, sounding almost like he’d stopped just in time to avoid his voice cracking. He shook his head. “The real world doesn’t work like that.”

“You’re not alone _now_ ,” Allison murmured. “Use it.”

The look Five gave her certainly didn’t help the urge Allison had to think of him like a child, but it was gone as quickly as it had emerged. “Fine,” he muttered. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mathematically speaking the fastest way to find a missing person would be in a spiral formation, so if I still had hope of the six of you being alive, that’s how I would have started.”

“See?” Allison said. “That’s already a start.”

Five scowled at her weakly.

“Come on. Luther’s getting a map we can set up in the living room and we’ll figure this thing out today if we keep at it.”

**

“Guess who just took a na—ap?” Klaus said, pretending to put his feet in Five’s lap just to annoy that bone deep scowl off his face.

“Glad you’re contributing,” Five said, smacking his feet away.

Klaus flopped onto the couch and picked up one of the notebooks. “Jesus Christ, kiddo, could you not find paper?”

“Don’t call me that,” Five hissed. Being annoyed at Klaus gave him a little more energy, and Klaus grinned at Ben to point it out. Ben smirked back. “And finding clean paper is a waste of time. I know which thoughts belong together even if they’re overlaid with other threads.”

Klaus squinted at the equations stuffed inside a messy drawing of the floor plan for the second floor of the Academy. “This cannot _possibly_ be the easiest way to take notes.” He looked at the map, which was more post-it note than map. “Where are we at?”

“We’ve identified one hospital, a department store, and we’re pretty sure about two more hospitals, but we can’t quite narrow them down,” Diego said.

“Huh,” Klaus murmured. He nudged Five in the side with his foot. “Not seeing any patterns?”

“However we decided where to search, it was erratic,” Five muttered, scribbling on another notepad without looking up. “I was hoping the dates might have some bearing on the areas we were in, but it seems like we just picked entirely arbitrary places to look each day.”

“Probably avoiding all the zombies,” Klaus said, mostly because it got an eyeroll out of everyone.

“For the _last_ time,” Five snapped, not looking up, “it’s _not_ a zombie if it’s _not_ dead!”

Everyone stopped to stare at him, though it took him a moment to notice. “What?”

“ _What’s_ not dead?” Vanya blurted.

Five blinked at her. “Shit,” he breathed. “I didn’t…” His head swiveled around to look at Klaus with burning intensity. “Say more annoying bullshit about zombies, _now.”_

Klaus opened his mouth, but he was suddenly at a loss for words. “So… about… those zombies…” he managed. At Five’s disbelieving look, he added, “I don’t know, I can’t be annoying on command!”

“You’re annoying literally any other time and you can’t be annoying when I need you to be?” Five yelled. “You’re useless!”

“I’m sorry!” Klaus whined, leaning back so Five couldn’t clip him in the face with the notebook if he decided to. “You caught me off guard!”

Five punched him on the arm, growling into the world at large. “It’s gone. Whatever I remembered is _gone_.”

“But at least you remembered!” Klaus said, carefully sitting back up. “Right?” He looked at the others for support. “I mean we haven’t remembered shit since we got here, and after like a day you’re… I mean…”

“I’m sure something else will come back to you,” Vanya murmured.

“Whatever,” Five hissed, bringing his feet up onto the couch to push himself back into it, like he wanted to push himself through the back of it out of sheer rage. “This is a dead end.” Klaus would not have thought it was possible to read aggressively, but Five somehow managed to do it, flipping pages until he finally disappeared and reappeared before the map to scrawl down another set of codes on it.

“Should you be pushing it with your powers?” Luther asked.

“Shut up, Luther!” Five snapped, throwing down the marker like it had personally offended him.

“Okay, fine,” Luther muttered. “Sorry for being worried after you were comatose for three days.”

“You’re all unbearable,” Five murmured, opening his notebook back up and staring at it with a furrowed brow.

“Five,” Vanya scolded. “We’re just trying to help.”

Five’s head snapped up, ready to bite something at her before he caught himself. It was almost adorable to watch him dance with the desire to be a dick. He looked back down. “This symbol is hygiene products. Soap, shampoo, whatever,” he muttered, showing them the page. “So you can add that to grocery stores, supermarkets, maybe malls.”

Klaus sighed. It was hard not to make a joke about temper tantrums, but a notebook was still a deadly weapon in Five’s hand, no matter how much he acted like a child who needed another nap. Klaus returned to his own notebook, trying to find something useful. The way Five took notes was dizzying, even if he did box in his coordinates.

He put the notebook down on the table and put his finger on the box to try to block out the rest of the page. There was something odd about how the page felt under his finger. He leaned closer, running the tip of his finger over it several times.

There were notches in the paper like someone had written there, but it seemed to be the only part of the page Five _hadn’t_ written on. Klaus flipped through the pages, keeping the original one open with his free hand, feeling the rest of the boxes.

“What are you doing?” Five asked.

“You are so judgey,” Klaus muttered. “Give me yours for a sec.” He snatched the book out of Five’s hands before he could respond and handed him the notebook he’d been looking at. “And keep that open.” He ignored Five’s seething and started feeling the other pages.

“Klaus, seriously, what?” Diego asked, but Ben waved him down, watching intently.

“Aha!” Klaus said, finding more of the notches. He fumbled at the others. “Uhh, sticky… stickynote!” Ben handed him a pad of them, and Klaus hurried to mark the page before looking for another. “Hah!”

“ _What?”_ Five growled.

Klaus stumbled over their legs to grab the marker and get up to the map. “Vanya, where do you live?”

“Uh,” Vanya said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Um, corner of Harris and Main.”

“Yes!” Klaus said. “Uhhh, Diego, West…”

“221 West Avenue,” Diego reminded him.

“ _Yes!”_ Klaus said, writing that code in too.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Five demanded.

“Shut up,” Klaus said, too carried away to relish the look of disbelief Five gave him. “Shit, where do _I_ live?” He whirled around. “Diego, go ask Eudora where I live!”

“Okay?” Diego managed, running off despite his confusion.

“Right,” Klaus murmured. “That’s… Yeah, Allison and Luther were in LA, Ben is… wherever…” Ben gave him a tired eye roll at that while Klaus took a moment to count on his fingers. “There’s really too many of us, Jesus.”

“ _Explain, Klaus_ ,” Five hissed.

“You know, if you weren’t such a wreck, I’d make you say please,” Klaus said, leaning over Five in triumph.

“I am not a wreck, and I’m not saying please,” Five hissed back. “Explain.”

“The explanation is you’re a suspicious, secretive bastard who doesn’t want to admit that deep, deep down he’s a big softie,” Klaus said, enjoying the way Five shrank back just a little when Klaus leaned in. Sure, he was concerned for his brother, but it was adorable just how flummoxed he was by genuine human contact. That, and he really deserved to gain a little humility now and then. Really, Klaus was doing him a favor.

“The hell does that have to do with anything?” Five said through his teeth.

“Well,” Klaus said, opening the notebook into his face with appropriate flourish. “It has to do with the fact that whenever you found one of our apartments, you scratched our numbers under the coordinates so only _you_ would know where to find them again.”

Five stared at him, quietly taking the notebook when Klaus handed it to him. He didn’t argue, just turned around to feel the page himself.

“67 Aspen Road,” Diego said, returning to the room.

“What?” Klaus whined. “Not 69? So close and yet so far away.”

“And he’s back,” Five muttered, but Klaus could see his hand was still on the page where the numbers were scratched, fingers curling almost like he wasn’t aware of it.

Klaus stuck his tongue out at Five, whether he looked or not, then winked at Ben. Ben snorted. He added the code to his address.

“Well, that’s about twice what he had up to now,” Vanya said. “That’s good, right?”

Five handed her the notebook. “Give me a second,” he muttered. “I think I see a pattern, but I need time to think.”

“Cool,” Klaus said. “Hey, Diego, can you give me a ride to my place? I need some clean clothes finally.” Thankfully he had a few pieces of clean underwear in his room here, because he’d been putting off asking where his stuff might be in favor of everything else going on.

“You know, if it means seeing you change out of that psychedelic nightmare, for once I don’t mind giving you a ride,” Deigo said, pulling out his keys. He looked back at the others, then at Five. “Have fun.”

**

Vanya watched Five muttering to himself. At the end of the day, he really hadn’t changed all that much. He’d always had some kind of theory or intense calculation he was going on about. He wasn’t really the type to make friends, but he did have a habit of popping into people’s rooms uninvited to pace about and think out loud, and Vanya had always been the least likely to throw him right back out.

She’d missed him, and it was odd to see him be as small as he once was and talking furiously to himself like he had. He’d had to drag a step stool up to the map to reach the top, and it was cuter than she’d ever dare admit to his face.

She’d long given up trying to add anything to the conversation, and now she was just enjoying the nostalgia that came from sitting silently and letting him think. Allison sighed and leaned closer to her, clearly doing the same thing.

“Hey, guys!” Klaus shouted, sliding into the room wearing a flowing blouse and pants that were almost simple black if not for the glitter, a duffel slung over his shoulder. “Guess who has two thumbs and a bedroom that is dead-person-proof!” He pointed at himself. “This guy. Once we save the world, I’ll be sleeping in a real bed that’s not my Dad’s solitary confinement prison!” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “I cannot wait.”

“Will you shut up, I’m onto something,” Five griped.

“Oh, I brought you an extra special present,” Klaus said. “Not that you deserve it, you mean little bastard.”

Five tapped his marker against his lip and ignored him.

Klaus blew a raspberry at him and dug into the bag he’d brought. He pulled out a red lump of fabric and hugged it while he waited, staring up at Five with suspiciously innocent eyes. He gave Ben a look, and Ben sighed, shaking his head. Klaus nodded at him silently, and Ben shrugged.

Five finally circled in a large area on the map. “It’s not very precise,” he muttered. “But I found all of you somewhere inside this circle.” He crossed his arms. “Stupid of me not to note down the specific address.”

“Well, I like to think you were slightly rattled by finding the several week old corpses of your entire family,” Klaus said. “The maggots really…” He made a vague gesture to indicate, Vanya thought, decaying flesh peeling off of one’s face.

Five stared down at him with a bemused frown. “What are you talking about?”

“What, me?” Klaus asked. “Nothing. But I brought you this.” He handed the fabric to Five.

Five took it out of sheer confusion, but he continued to stare at Klaus questioningly.

“It’s the sweater you arrived in,” Klaus said, smiling sweetly and mischievously. “It’s mine! Isn’t that sweet? I figure since _my_ copy of it is still soft and fluffy, you can have it now instead of after I’m dead.”

The look on Five’s face was an indescribable mix of disbelief, offended rage, hidden wistful shock and annoyance. “It’s because as adults we’re the same _height_ , you idiot,” he said finally.

“Which explains why you didn’t get your clothes from a department store… how, exactly?” Ben pointed out. Klaus gave him a thumbs up.

Five looked between Ben and Klaus, unsure of which of them to glare at more. “That’s not… _shut up!”_

Allison covered her mouth to hide her laugh, and Vanya bit her lips to do the same. “Okay, okay,” Allison said, an errant half giggle escaping her. “Klaus, Ben, don’t torture him, you know emotional intelligence isn’t his strong suit.”

Five whirled around to glare at her.

“Am I wrong?” she said, hand on her hip. “Anyway, if we have a general area, we need to search it, see what we can find there.”

Vanya nodded, noting quietly that Five was still gripping the sweater to his chest with a white knuckled grip. She decided not to bring it up, but she did nod at it for Allison, who shot her a furtive smile in response. “I think we should stay together,” Vanya said.

“All seven of us searching the same place is…”

“Oh, let me guess, a waste of time?” Klaus said, getting a marker in the face for his efforts. He accepted his fate and looked up at Five with a tired disdain.

“I didn’t mean all of us,” Vanya said. “We can split that area up into sections and go search it in pairs.”

“Really Vanya, the buddy system?” Diego asked.

“Not you,” Luther interjected. “You should go to the station, find any hotels or abandoned buildings in the area so we have something to go on if we don’t find anything.”

Diego hummed in surprised agreement. “Point taken. I can also pull records of any suspicious activity in the area, tell the guys who to look for.”

Luther nodded. “Otherwise, Vanya is right. If any of us gets into trouble alone, it’s possible we wouldn’t even know about it until too late, and the last thing we need is to lose track of one another.”

“I’ll get something to draw lots with,” Allison said. “That way we don’t end up arguing who pairs up with who.”

Five sighed. “I’d be faster on my own.”

“Unless you pass out from exhaustion,” Ben said.

“I’m not going to pass out from exhaustion,” Five snapped. As though he’d just noticed how hard he was hugging the sweater to himself, he shifted awkwardly and dropped it to his side. He rolled his eyes. “But if it’s that important to all of you, _fine_. I don’t need you derailing everything with an argument again.”

“Hey, we’ve all been well behaved since we got back!” Klaus protested.

“Congratulations, you’ve been adults for a whole four days.”

“Okay,” Allison said, returning with a bag. “I put three colors of post-it notes in here, everyone stays with the person who drew the same color.” She held out the bag and let them each take one.

Ben elbowed Vanya to show her he had a matching color, smiling at her softly. She smiled back.

“Jesus Christ,” Five said. “ _Klaus?”_

Klaus held up his own note in triumph, laughing manically.

Ben leaned in to whisper to her. “They’re going to die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Ben, you've got at least another chapter left before things start getting wildly life threatening for those two.
> 
> ...
> 
> I've said too much, I have to go.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> past me: i'm gonna pay attention to pacing to make sure i've planted all the seeds for future plot points and so it'll be a while before i can really get into the action
> 
> current me: WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS 
> 
> (Oh yeah also I thought I'd mention I'm dgalerab on Tumblr and Twitter where I a.) post weeb shit and b.) cry about how much I want to reveal spoilers for this fic)

“I can’t stress enough how much faster I’d be without you,” Five said, shrugging his shoulders like he was still itching.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Klaus said. “You’re still looking rather peaked.” He did not mention the ‘headache that feels like someone shoved a box of cotton up your nose.’

Five rolled his eyes, inspecting the buildings around them. “I feel fine.”

Klaus hummed. “Also, not to toot my own horn, but I really am the best person who you could have chosen to come with you.”

“I didn’t choose you,” Five muttered. “For good reason.”

And yet Five hadn’t protested, probably because he’d thought Klaus would still be easy to bribe into leaving him alone. Little did _he_ know that Klaus had a _real_ job in this timeline. That, and with every day, he found himself thinking of getting high less. It was probably cheating a little, to kick off rehab by suddenly appearing in a body that had never used drugs, but hey. Klaus would take it. Being sober was actually not bad if he could _sleep._

“You’re be-hind,” Klaus sang, dancing alongside Five while Five walked. “See, in this timeline, I am delightfully sober. Do you know why that matters, little Number Five?”

“I could break your arm before you could blink,” Five hissed.

“ _Wrong_ ,” Klaus said. “Well, okay, no, you’re factually correct, I’m sure… You’re not playing this game right. Anyway…”

“You’re sorely testing my resolve to be conservative in using my powers until I’m better rested.”

“Aw, you _do_ listen to us,” Klaus cooed. Five started walking faster, forcing Klaus to jog to catch back up to him. “I can see _dead people_ , Five!” Trying to gesture at him aggressively and walk at the same time was surprisingly difficult. “We’re looking for assassins! And I can see dead people!”

Five stopped short. “Can you specifically conjure their victims?”

_Now_ he seemed interested in talking to Klaus. “God, you’re such a pragmatic tiny goblin. Anyway, no, but, last time I was sober around Hazel and Cha-Cha, their victims were _everywhere_ ,” Klaus said. “Couldn’t _stop_ trying to talk to me. I figure I’ll just keep an eye out for particularly large amounts of horribly gruesome ghosts.”

“Huh,” Five remarked, looking into the distance as though he’d just had a life altering revelation. “Well, it’s not perfect, but _is_ useful.”

“Yeah!” Klaus chirped. “Gee, Dad could have mentioned something like _that_ , right? Hey, Klaus, if you get the hang of talking to dead people, you can get a job solving murder mysteries and tracking down assassins. It’s going to be great! Oh, also, why don’t you learn to banish dead spirits so you can _stop_ every so often, and also, hey, here are these crystals that block out the dead so you can actually sleep at night, go ahead and toss those around your bedroom…”

“Yeah, well,” Five snorted. “I’m starting to think Dad didn’t know what the hell he was doing.”

“I’ve never felt closer to you,” Klaus whispered. He was pretty sure he saw the corner of Five’s mouth twitch like he was almost willing to smile at Klaus’ antics.

“Focus,” he said instead. “The ground we have to cover is still too big, and if the apocalypse is still on schedule we only have five days left.”

“Right, right,” Klaus said. “I’m paying attention, don’t get your tiny child shorts in a bunch, old man.”

Five grunted at him noncommittally, putting his hands in his pockets and squinting at the building beside them, like it was intentionally hiding something from them.

“You know, if you ever want to talk…”

“I don’t.”

“I’m just saying,” Klaus said. “Must be a lot, all the things you’ve been through lately.”

“God, do you ever shut up? We have a job to do,” Five said. “Anything?”

“Nope,” Klaus said. “Hey, what do you think Harold stole from Dad’s surveillance bunker?”

Five shrugged. “Research, probably. Last time he took Dad’s notebook. I’m also pretty sure he stole one of our figures, unless they started selling more figures of Dad after I left.”

“Nah, it was probably the one in the cabinet. He was inside the Academy with Vanya like… once,” Klaus said. He made a face. “Seriously, he stole it? What a weirdo.”

Five hummed. “What else did I miss while I was out?” he asked.

“Oh, Dad lost his mind and built containment rooms for us all,” Klaus said. “No biggie.”

Five stopped. “He what?”

“Don’t worry, you got left out, seeing as how Dad gave up on you,” Klaus said. He paused. “Now that I say it I realize that’s even more depressing.”

Five narrowed his eyes. “Luther mentioned the possibility of weapons, but containment rooms…” he muttered. “If Dad kept his research on how he built those, and Harold got his hands on it…”

“Yeah… That would probably be bad,” Klaus said, chewing at his lip thoughtfully.

“Although,” Five murmured, humming to himself. “Let’s go around the block, then go back to the Academy. You mentioned a kind of crystal that blocks your powers?”

“Mhmm,” Klaus said. “I’m surprised you listened to that.”

“I didn’t, but you talk so much it’s inevitable that I hear some of it,” Five said, rubbing his chin in thought like he was used to having a beard to stroke. “Depending on how rare it is, if Harold tried to get his hands on any, that might narrow his movements down a little.”

“I guess so.”

“Come on!” Five called, already halfway down the block.

“Coming!” Klaus yelled, running after him.

**

“Huh,” Vanya said.

“What’s up?” Ben asked.

Vanya hesitated, looking down the street. “Where did Five say we should start?”

“From Folley Street,” Ben said, pointing. “Why, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Vanya said, scuffing her shoe against the sidewalk.

Ben raised a brow at her. “Vanya. You’re hiding yourself.”

Vanya gave him annoyed look, but rolled her eyes in admission, grimacing. “It’s just that Leonard… fuck. _Harold’s_ woodworking shop isn’t in the search area but it is about ten minutes away from the edge of it by car.” She shook her head. “It’s probably nothing, it’s miles away.”

“No, let’s check it out,” Ben said. “I mean, it’ll take us about an hour at most to walk there and if there’s nothing special we can come back and still search the area we agreed on before nightfall.”

“We said we’d be back by five,” Vanya protested.

“So we’ll find a phone booth,” Ben said. “You had a hunch and we’re going to follow up on it. It’s fine.”

Vanya shuffled in discomfort, but nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”

Ben nodded. “Honestly, you can’t get more distracted than Klaus.”

“That’s a low bar,” Vanya muttered.

They walked in silence for a while.

“You know, it wasn’t that bad being stuck with him,” Ben said. “I mean, it was basically the only way I could be in the world, so I was with him way more than any person should be stuck with another person, but… Klaus has a good heart. Mostly it was just hard not being able to help him out of the problems he got himself into.”

“I wish we would have asked him about you more,” Vanya said. “I guess we never even thought about trying to talk to you through him. He kind of self destructed after you died and we didn’t think he could do it.” She frowned. “We should have gotten involved, but Dad always acted like it was all Klaus’ problem if he was doing drugs.”

“Dad wasn’t very good at accepting culpability,” Ben said.

“I was so angry you guys left me out of things but… we kind of all ended up overlooking each other’s hurt, huh?” Vanya mused. “I mean, Luther was Number One, so we figured he had it made. Diego was always the tough guy so we didn’t pay attention to him. I always thought Allison could have anything she ever wanted, so what problems could she possibly have? Klaus… I don’t know, he was just too much to deal with and it felt like that was just… _Klaus.”_

“I don’t think even Klaus knows how to deal with Klaus,” Ben offered.

“Five disappeared,” Vanya continued. “And you… I know you never really wanted to fight crime.”

“It wasn’t very fun for me,” Ben admitted. “What with the whole monstrous, murderous tentacles.”

Vanya smiled ruefully.

“But at least we got to feel like we belonged,” Ben added. “Dad always made sure you never felt that way.”

Vanya nodded. “But that was Dad. You guys… You were kids, like me.”

“Well, we could have been a _little_ more attentive,” Ben teased. “I don’t think I really… you know, looked out from my place in the family to see what was going on until I was dead and couldn’t get into stuff with you guys anymore.”

She sighed, nodding. After a while walking in silence, she blurted, “You ever get to the point where you want to forgive someone but don’t know how?”

“Yeah. You mean Dad?”

“God, no. Luther. I get why he acted the way he did. He never… you know, got the chance to take a look outside of his place in the family, like you said,” Vanya murmured. “He shouldn’t have done what he did, but… I get it, and I want to put it behind me. We don’t know whether or not we’ll survive the next five days, I don’t want to die mad at him.”

Ben shrugged. There wasn’t really a good answer to that.

“Did you ever blame him for your death?” Vanya asked.

“Sometimes,” Ben said. “I blamed all of them, at some point. But we were _all_ carried away in Dad’s… saving the world shtick. He just chose Luther to be the head of it, and Luther… he takes things at face value. Sometimes that was nice, sometimes it just made him stupid.”

Vanya nodded. “I know what you mean.”

“When it’s time, you’ll be able to forgive him,” Ben said. “If that’s what you need.”

“I hope so.” She stopped, frowning as she stepped in front of a boarded up building. “It’s not here anymore.”

“Well he did vanish from prison years ago,” Ben said. “Should we take a look inside?”

Vanya looked around furtively, then stood back, pulling Ben with her. She closed her eyes, taking a few deep breaths, then pushed her hand out. The boards snapped under the invisible blast from her fingertips, glass shattering. She opened her eyes. “Wow.”

“Not bad,” Ben said, grinning. “Come on.” He ducked through the now broken door frame.

He helped Vanya through after him, then stood to look around.

It looked like a store had been here, but it had been closed for quite some time, and there was no merchandise left on the shelves. Vanya started towards the shelves, seemingly lost in thought.

“I probably should have realized, right?” Vanya asked. It took Ben a moment to realize she was talking about Leonard. “I mean, he was talking about his dad dying and family the first time we met. Like he already knew me. Even if I didn’t know he was… whatever… I should have guessed he read my book.”

Ben shrugged. “I guess when you’re used to not being seen you start being desperate for people who understand,” he said.

“Did you ever feel like that?”

“If I’d found anyone other than Klaus who could see me, I’d have been on them like a fly to honey,” Ben said. “Probably would _not_ have asked the important questions either.”

Vanya smiled weakly. “It’s good to have you back.”

He returned the smile. He’d gotten so used to being around people, invisible, it was weird to have someone looking at him so directly. It was almost overwhelming. “Good to be back.”

Vanya frowned, noticing something over his shoulder. “Hang on.”

Ben turned, following her eyes. There was a workbench with a clamp, what looked like an anvil. Under it, there was a blowtorch of some kind and a soldering iron. He looked at Vanya, and they both went to get a closer look. “These don’t seem like woodworking tools,” Vanya said.

“More like metalworking,” Ben muttered, pulling out a small crate next to it. There was an assortment of disassembled and half built electronics. “Maybe it was an electronics store before he got it?”

“He did say his dad was an engineer,” Vanya said. “Maybe it used to be his shop before Harold got out of jail.”

“That would make sense,” Ben muttered. He looked back at the place beneath the crate, frowning. There was a small gap between the wall and the floor behind it. He shifted so he was under the table and dug his fingers in, pulling.

There seemed to be a panel there, but it was plastered over, and took a few hard tugs before it came away with a crack. Behind it, there was a small box.

Vanya leaned forward to pull it out. “Locked,” she muttered.

“Give me,” Ben said. “I’ve seen Klaus do this a hundred times.” He set the box down, pulling out a paperclip and a pin. It was significantly harder to do than to watch, but eventually it clicked open.

On the top, there was the book about them.

“Then Harold _was_ here,” Vanya murmured, pulling it out. Underneath, it was Ben’s book. Ben picked it up, and a picture slipped out. Vanya grabbed it. “And he knew about Five.” She showed Ben the picture, a picture of Five that seemed to have been cut out of a photocopy of something.

Ben took it, looking at it closer. “Well, that’s not a great sign.”

**

Five knocked at the crystalline walls of the room. After a long time of trying to analyze the structure of it, he leaned in to smell it.

“You getting a lot of information there, buddy?” Klaus asked.

“Can you get me whatever books Dad had on geology?” Five replied.

Klaus sighed. “Sure, fine.”

Five pulled out the kitchen knife he’d brought with him and tried to dig it into the brownish crystal. It chipped easily, which ruled out some kind of marble. It seemed to splinter into small prisms, and smelled a little like iron.

“What are you?” he murmured, squinting at it.

Klaus returned with an armful of books after a while. “Here we go, everything I could find.”

Five dug through the pile quickly, until he found a catalogue of minerals, quickly flipping through it. Something with high iron content, or a monoclinic structure… “Got it,” he said, finally. “Staurolite. If I remember correctly, it has a reputation for being able to ward off spirits, which, in this case, doesn’t seem to be entirely pseudo-science garbage.”

“Ye of little faith,” Klaus gasped.

“It’s found primarily in Georgia,” Five said. “We should get in touch with Diego’s detective friend and tell her to concentrate some of her efforts on sightings in Georgia.”

“Right,” Klaus said, hurrying away.

Five closed the book and jumped upstairs with it, just as Vanya and Ben came inside, carrying with them a crate and a pile of books.

“What the hell are those?”

“Harold’s,” Vanya said.

“You found him?” Five blurted. Surely if they had, they would have started with that right away.

“No, but we found what used to be his workshop, we think,” Ben said. “He had these hidden behind a wall.”

He handed the books over. It was the autobiography, Ben’s book, and a pile of their comic books. “So we know he was obsessed with us,” Five said. “We already knew that.”

Vanya reached forward to pull a page out from between the books.

“Well, shit,” Five said. “The Commission must have told him about me.”

“Would they have known you’d come back before you did it, though?” Vanya asked. “I mean, this stuff seemed… older.”

Five sighed. “No, probably not. Even when I did it the first time, I think they caught on so fast because I had a tracker in my arm.”

“Maybe it was because you were the only variable?” Ben suggested. “If he knew Dad was building contingency plans against all of us, he might have guessed you were left out. I’m pretty sure you could guess that from our book.”

Five grimaced. “Either way, the fact that they’re prepared for me to be here is… concerning.”

“But you’re timeline 1 you, not timeline 2 you,” Ben pointed out. “They’re not looking for an assassin.”

“I don’t know. I think timeline 2 me had some skills of his own,” Five muttered. “We definitely stockpiled a lot of bullets, and whatever not-zombies were out there, they were trouble.”

He always had a gun with him in his apocalypse, but he’d never collected that many bullets. Technically, he hadn’t needed a gun at all and he knew it, but after the 100th time hearing something move in the dark and not knowing whether it was just the wind or if he wasn’t as alone as he thought, he’d spent a few days making sure he could defend himself. Just in case. If having a cool barrel pressed against his hand like it was a child’s night light had helped him get a few more hours of sleep here and there, that was just an added benefit.

“You think he’d know about that?”

“Probably. If they’re expecting me back they’re probably prepared for me to be competent.” He shrugged. “Just means we can’t let our guard down.” He nodded at the crate. “What’s that?”

“We don’t know,” Vanya said. “But we’re pretty sure they belong to Harold, so…” She shrugged.

Five sighed, picking up one of the things inside the crate. It was curved, like the inside of a short pipe sawed in half, and homemade electronics were welded onto it experimentally, like someone had been testing them out. The sight of wires felt more familiar to him than he expected, but the phantom experience from what he assumed was the other timeline offered no help in identifying what the electronics were for.

The door opened, and he tossed the piece back into the crate as he jumped to greet the others. “Anything?” he asked.

“No,” Allison said. “No sign of anything out of place.”

“I’ve got a few places that might fit the bill,” Diego said. “Empty offices, one hotel… But no reports of suspicious activity anywhere around there.”

“Dammit,” Five whispered to himself. “Do you have a list?”

Diego nodded, handing a paper over. Five scanned the addresses for anything useful.

“I talked to Diego’s girlfriend. She’s checking out any place that might sell staurolite in mass quantities,” Klaus said, leaping over the banister to join them.

“Staurolite?” Allison asked.

“There’s quite a significant possibility that Harold stole the old man’s notes on how to cripple us,” Five said. “Soundproofing and silencing are pretty obvious, but also easy to build. Diego’s appears to be some kind of magnetic alloy which might be rare, but it’s too hard to identify. Same with Ben’s and Luther’s. Which leaves Klaus’ isolation room as the only material Harold would have gone after to cripple us that we have any chance of identifying.”

“I haven’t been able to find his notes,” Luther said. “I assumed it was because he made sure to hide it better after we took it as kids, but…”

“But it’s likely it’s currently with Harold Jenkins,” Five gritted out. “Exactly.” That should have been the first damn assumption.

“So now what?” Allison asked.

“Now,” Five said, biting his tongue in frustration. He wanted to point out that they had to do something with every moment they had. “Did we check everything about Harold’s house and the cabin?”

“Yeah,” Diego said. “No one’s been living there. Murder shrine is there, but it looks like it hasn’t been touched in years. He probably started it as a kid. Grandma’s house is entirely abandoned.”

Five let out a noise of frustration. “I’m going back to the search area. Klaus?”

“Oh, come on. You didn’t even want me with you last time and now you’re dragging me out again? Can we at least eat on the way?” Klaus asked. “I’m starving.”

Five rolled his eyes. “Sure, as long as you shut up and keep looking for assassination victims.”

“Sure, Dad,” Klaus muttered.

Five glared at him halfheartedly. He heard it too, and despite the fact that Klaus was a pain in the ass, he had been helpful. Five wasn’t technically trying to torment his brother, even if he suspected that Klaus was actively tormenting _him_ in the name of love. “I’ll pay,” he relented.

Klaus brightened immediately. “Oh, well in that case, let’s search away!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> five: hey i'm gonna take this list of places to maybe find a really angry assassin that knows my face and go look for him in the middle of the night with one (1) perpetually exhausted psychic  
> the hargreeves siblings, who were never taught what caution looks like: sure sounds legit
> 
>  
> 
> ANYWAY I'm actually going to keep myself to the 3 day posting gap because COME ON, AIN, but on Tuesday... HAROLD*  
> *not a reference to lesbians unfortunately (or fortunately, because I've lowkey banned Harold from interacting with any more lesbians in this fic)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is technically Tuesday here.
> 
> Technically I made it. Technically.
> 
> I'M JUST REALLY EXCITED FOR HAROLD BEING CREEPY OKAY.

“This is nice,” Klaus said around a mouthful of fries. “Hanging out with my little brother.”

“I’m not your little brother,” Five muttered, tapping the steering wheel in frustration as they looped around the block for what had to be the 20th time.

“Well, you’re like… halfway 27, right?” Klaus said. “So you’re halfway my little brother, and what with the body, I feel like you’re close enough.”

“That’s not how…” Five said, scowling. “Even if I did mix with another version of myself, it’s a quantum effect and it’s not a constant 50-50 ratio.”

Klaus nodded sagely, stuffing a fry into his mouth. “Okay, but consider… you’re like four feet tall.”

Five sighed. “Of course you wouldn’t get it.”

Klaus whined, scrunching up the box the fries had come in and putting it in the glove box. “Come on, Five, it’s getting dark, we should turn in for the night, start nice and fresh tomorrow.”

“I’ve slept enough lately.” He bent down, squinting out the window as he drove.

“You know that’s not how sleep works, right?” Klaus said. “Like, you can’t just stock up on sleep and then just… not.”

“You’re one to talk,” Five said. “I know you spent most of our childhood sleeping less than six hours a day.”

“Yeah, because there are _dead people_ yelling at me all the time!” Klaus said. “Not by choice.”

Five hummed absently, creeping around the corner with the car.

Klaus sighed. “Though I guess you can relate, huh?” After seeing Ben die, Klaus had had nightmares about him so many times, blaming Klaus, demanding retribution. He hadn’t even talked to Ben’s ghost for half a year, he’d been so terrified of seeing Ben. It must have been worse for Five, spending decades alone with no one to tell him it wasn’t his fault like Ben eventually had. Klaus wondered if Five ever had nightmares in which they all demanded for him to fix it with dead, empty eyes.

Five glanced at him questioningly, but returned to watching the road almost immediately. “I’d ask what you were talking about, but I don’t want to know.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m just saying things,” Klaus said with a sigh. If he asked about it, Five was sure to clam up. He squirmed in his seat to try to get a little more comfortable. He was pretty sure Five was going to keep driving all night, and Klaus wasn’t keen to get a crick in the neck from it.

He yawned, then focused back on the road, yelping when he saw someone in front of them, smacking Five in the chest to stop. Five glared at him.

“Oh,” Klaus said, letting out a relieved breath. “Oh shit, okay, they’re already dead.” He swallowed, his heart thundering in his chest.

“I can drive just fine. I’m not going to run anyone over, Klaus,” Five muttered, shifting to drive forward again.

“Wait, wait,” Klaus murmured, leaning over the dashboard to get a better look. The ghost stared at him. He could see the blood covering his chest now that they’d rolled forward enough to get the headlights on him. “I know that guy.” He unbuckled his seatbelt and stepped out of the car. “Hey. Hey, uh… sir. Hi.”

The ghost looked at him. “You can see me,” he said.

Klaus nodded awkwardly. “I can. Do you uh… do you mind me asking a few questions?”

Five stepped out of the car as well, walking around so he could look at Klaus urgently. “Who is he?” he asked.

Klaus waved for him to be quiet. “What’s your name?”

“Bill,” the ghost replied.

“Bill. Great. Were you by any chance murdered by a really angry black lady?” he asked. “She might have been wearing a mask. A pink uh… dog?” He looked at Five, but didn’t bother to wait for his brother to keep up. “Pink dog mask. I think it was supposed to look scary.”

“Cha-Cha?” Five whispered.

“Yeah,” Bill said. “I guess so.” He looked down at himself. “Came outta nowhere. Shot me like twelve times. That’s gotta be overkill, right?”

“Uh, yyyeah,” Klaus said. “My condolences. That does uh… that does sound like… yes.”

“Where _is_ she?” Five hissed.

“Could you tell me where she is?” Klaus said. “We kind of need to stop her from killing more people.”

“I don’t know, around here somewhere,” Bill said.

“Right,” Klaus sighed. “Uh… can you be more precise? Maybe?”

“I guess maybe over that way,” Bill said, waving what was left of his arm. “It’s kind of hard to remember stuff like that when I’m like this.”

“I bet,” Klaus muttered. “But uh… thanks. That’s a start. Have a nice afterlife, I guess?”

“What did he say?” Five urged.

“He said that way,” Klaus said, gesturing as Bill had.

“That’s it?” Five hissed. “That’s nothing!”

“Give him a break, he’s dead!” Klaus hissed back. “You’d be confused too if you’d been unexpectedly shot 12 times.”

Five made a face. “That just sounds like overkill.”

“You know, I think she just likes shooting people,” Klaus said. “Now come on, we’re going… that way. Ish. His arm wasn’t entirely… attached.”

Five made an irritated noise, but he followed Klaus nonetheless.

It wasn’t long before Klaus saw another person, this time even bloodier. Half the woman’s face was missing. “Hello, hi,” he said, trying not to flinch when she turned to look at him. “I’m Klaus, this is my brother Five – he can’t see you – could you tell us your name?”

“Why do you have to—“ Five started, but Klaus waved him off again.

The ghost looked at Klaus for a moment before speaking. “Avleen.”

“Avleen, lovely name,” Klaus said, trying not to focus on how talking twisted her mutilated face. “Were you murdered by a lady in a pink dog mask and if so have you seen her lately?”

Avleen pointed. “Yes. She was in an office building with another guy.”

“Was he… did he look like a Harold?” Klaus guessed.

Avleen nodded. “Yeah, I think she called him that.”

“What are they saying?” Five said, eyes flickering between Klaus and where he assumed the ghost to be with frightening intensity. Klaus, frankly, was not going to tell him he was at least two feet off.

He smacked him on the shoulder instead. “Listen, do you know which building? It would help a lot.”

“That one,” she said. “With the green car in front of it.”

“The…” Klaus said, following her hand. “With the for sale sign?”

“Yes,” Avleen said. “She beat me to death with a paperweight.”

“Right, sorry about that,” Klaus said. “Condolences.” He swallowed. “We’ll… try to enact justice, or something. Thank you kindly for the help and… have a nice afterlife.” Apparently that was going to be his catchphrase. He turned to relay the message to Five, but Five was gone. “Oh, _shit_ ,” he whispered, running to the building. He tried the door, which was unsurprisingly locked.

He checked the windows, but they’d been boarded up. “Fuuuuck,” he whispered, searching his pockets for anything that might work as a lock pick. When he found nothing, he whirled around to look for something, but he didn’t make it more than a step before he crashed into someone.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, before he recognized her. “Oh, _shit_.”

It seemed Cha-Cha also recognized _him_ , because her hand flew to her side to grab her gun.

This moment was definitely a good motivation for not being high, some part of Klaus thought, as he took the moment she spent grabbing her gun to vault over the nearest car and duck, because if he had been high, he definitely would _not_ have had the requisite reaction time to get down before bullets started flying.

And then, that still absurdly clear part of him offered, he’d be dead.

**

“Are they still out?” Allison asked. “I’m getting worried about them.”

“I think if Five has his way, he’ll be out all night,” Vanya murmured. “Though, I think sober Klaus might be a match for him. Hopefully he’ll drag Five back before Five falls asleep driving or something.”

Allison rolled her eyes. “You know, it’s hard to be a good sister when your older-younger-smaller brother is such an asshole,” she said, flopping down beside Vanya. She sighed, picking up one of the notebooks and running her finger along the side of it. “Though, I guess he has been through a lot.”

“Yeah,” Vanya said. “Must be weird for him, being around people, right?” She snorted. “Though it’s not like he was ever any good with them. He was worse at it than me.”

“You were good with people!” Allison protested, tracing her finger across the paper in the book in thought.

“I was nervous around them,” Vanya said. “And I didn’t want to say anything they might not like.”

“Yeah, but you were also understanding and… nice,” Allison said. “At that age I was neither of those things.”

Vanya smiled. “You were okay. We all knew you cared about us, at the end of the day. And even if some days we didn’t, we definitely know now.”

Allison smiled softly at that, then frowned as her finger caught on a page that seemed thicker than the rest. She opened the book and paged through until she found it. The page was just as full of notes as the rest, but it appeared to have been glued in there. “What the hell,” she murmured. Five did not seem the type to try to correct any of his notes when he could just scrawl on top of them with a new idea.

She lifted the thick page away. “Could you grab me a knife?”

“Sure,” Vanya said, sitting up and searching until she found one of Diego’s knives. “What’s up?”

“I don’t know,” Allison muttered, taking the knife and trying to lift away the glued page. Luckily, it appeared that Five had not found any good glue for this, because the page peeled away without much tearing. She squinted at it, then breathed, “Oh, fuck.”

The page was mostly math, like usual. However, the math on this page trailed off after a few lines to end in a furiously scratched, bold, _HOW THE **FUCK** DID YOU DO IT PEABODY???_

**

Five jumped inside the building, looking around once to make sure no one was inside the room where he’d landed.

He probably should have told Klaus where he was going, but Klaus was… well, Klaus talked kindly to dead people and asked them their name even though he was visibly scared of them. Klaus probably didn’t need to watch his brother brutally murder someone, even if that someone had manipulated their sister, killed several people – including, in at least one timeline, their entire family – and caused the apocalypse.

No, Klaus was definitely better off outside, far from the violence Five had grown numb to.

He tried the door to the stairwell. That was unlocked, so he opened it quietly and started up the stairs. Until he found a lock or someone alive, there was no reason to use his powers. He was fairly sure he’d bounced back to his full potential when it came to jumping, but his siblings’ nagging did have its effect on him, if only due to sheer volume. He wasn’t going to push it.

The next door had a padlock on it. He checked it, tugging a few times before determining that it was sturdy. He looked around in the stairwell just in case, then jumped inside the room.

He was not expecting the sight that greeted him. It was dark, which was unsurprising, but the room was filled with more mirrors than any abandoned building would feasibly have, each pointing at the other until his every movement sent a shadowy ripple through the entire room.

He froze, listening for movement that wasn’t his own. He heard the smallest click and jumped just as the ensuing bullet grazed his side and shattered a mirror. He ducked behind one of the glass coated walls, feeling his way to keep from losing track of what was a mirror and what was air.

“Took you long enough,” came a voice. It wasn’t a voice he could recall having heard before, but somehow, Five knew without a shadow of doubt that it belonged to Harold Jenkins. “Did you get caught up in the reunion?”

Five slowly put his weight on his foot, moving into a crouch that would let him dart out. Now that he knew where Harold was, he just needed a good way to kill the guy. He moved to loosen his tie – if he could get behind Harold, strangling him would be easy.

The sound of his tie rustling, however, echoed through room, and Five barely had a split second to jump before Harold fired at him, the mirrors shattering where he had been.

Harold must have night vision goggles, Five realized.

He’d been expecting Five.

“No, that doesn’t sound like you, does it?” Harold said.

It wasn’t going to be easy to get behind him. Five needed something to jam into his throat as a backup plan. He eyed the glass shards across from him. If he could grab one—

He’d stayed in one place too long, because Harold swept around the corner to fire at him. Five ducked, then jumped again, back to the first shattered mirror. He undid his tie quickly and wrapped it around his hand, reaching for one of the larger slivers.

And apparently, Harold had been aware that would be his next move, because he didn’t even have to make a noise to get shot at this time. He jumped away, trying to get out of the maze he was in, but a few feet over there were only more mirrors.

“You’ve always been business first, personal matters later,” Harold said. “Don’t tell me, you wore yourself out jumping back.”

Five let his foot slide back a little louder than he would have allowed it to normally, drawing Harold into this part of the maze. He jumped away before the bullets could land, back to the glass, swiping at it. He stumbled – this was too much jumping all at once with the lingering exhaustion of the past week still chasing at his heels.

Stumbling, however, was irrelevant. He didn’t have time to waste. He needed a weapon. He grabbed one of the slivers, gripping it as tightly as he could with his wrapped hand.

“Would have been a lot easier with my briefcase, huh?” Harold taunted.

Five rolled his eyes. He wondered if that taunt would be any more effective if he was actually the version of himself Harold was clearly expecting.

He had to get in close, and it wasn’t going to happen without a jump. He readied the makeshift glass knife, then dove. It still went smoothly, but his attention was being drawn more towards how hard he needed to push to make the jump. He was definitely nearing his limit.

Harold’s foot came up towards his face, leaving Five only a second to catch it. The glass dropped from his hand and shattered.

“Always from behind,” Harold said, raising his gun to Five’s face.

Five jumped away, but he didn’t make it far. He was breathing way too fast. This was not good.

He would have to jump outside this room and look for a better place to hide, where he could ambush Harold. Harold, on the other hand, would have to leave through the door, meaning that if Five hid in the stairwell…

He pushed himself towards the door, but space-time pushed back.

 _Shit_.

He could still manage another jump if he just focused. He took a deep breath and—

There was suddenly a chord across his throat, pulling him tightly against Harold’s chest.

“There it is,” Harold muttered into his ear. “You can’t be special forever, can you, Five?”

Five’s brain kicked into overdrive. It took about two minutes for Five to lose consciousness without air at the best of times – he’d tried learning how to hold his breath longer in the apocalypse, but there was only so far he could push it. Not to mention, he was breathless from all the jumping too, and his 13 year old lung capacity probably wasn’t as great. He had to think—

 _He could see Harold, like he was right in front of him in the daylight, his briefcase in his lap, could hear himself saying, “I knew you weren’t who you said you were, you son of a bitch_ ,” _could feel how hard it was to keep his voice from quivering, “Did you kill them?” He could hear Harold saying, “I didn’t. Not yet,” and the click of the clasps_ —

He kicked against the mirror nearest to him, elbowing Harold in the gut for enough give to get one of his hands around the resulting shards. The tie was on the wrong hand for this, but it didn’t matter at this point if he cut his hand. If anything, it was good for bringing himself back to the present. Harold didn’t falter for long – Five wondered just how much of a grudge he had to be this single-minded in trying to kill him. He dug the shard into Harold’s thigh, the only place he could get it with Harold choking him like this.

Harold laughed. “I’ve been waiting thirty years for this,” he said, like all of this was _funny_. “You really think a little pain is going to stop me from killing you?”

Five gripped the shard as tightly as he could, trying to get the pain from his hand to keep him awake. He pulled it out, fumbling to get his arm around his middle to stab higher. He was losing grip, and glass wasn’t a good enough weapon to kill Harold unless Five could get to his throat. He tried to kick the ground to unbalance them both, but each kick was losing momentum.

 _I’m going to die_ , he realized, with absurd clarity. The world was going fuzzy, it was hard to think, but that thought was clear as day. He was going to die, and then his family was going to die, and then…

Then something glowing and blue roared into his vision and Harold was thrown back.

Five wheezed, gasping for precious air as a hand closed around his arm and pulled hard enough to get Five moving. Five didn’t know how he was on his feet, and he wasn’t sure if he was coughing or breathing, but someone had one arm around him and was pushing him forward, so he let his instinct take over and move his legs for him.

“Come on, move it, I’ve got some ghost friends helping out, but I can’t keep them solid for long,” Klaus said. “And Cha-Cha’s _terrifying_ , there’s no way she’ll stay down for long.”

Five couldn’t follow his words very well, head still spinning, but he knew that Klaus had gotten him down the stairs and out the door.

“Come on, come on, come on,” Klaus whispered, shoving him into the car. Five heard banging as Klaus vaulted over the hood, then another kind of banging that was probably bullets. He wasn’t clear enough on up or down to duck. Klaus slammed the door shut, reaching into Five’s pocket for the keys to the car. His hands were glowing, Five noted, through the fog of asphyxiation and panic.

For some reason, Klaus driving was alarming, but Five’s entire mind had narrowed in on breathing through his bruised throat. He leaned forward, hand flying to his throat as he wheezed desperately.

The car lurched to life with an alarming amount of acceleration, and Five realized sluggishly why Klaus driving was alarming.

It was because Klaus couldn’t drive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be fair Klaus has shown that he can drive an ice cream truck INTO assassins so he can definitely drive a car AWAY from them too.
> 
> Next time: Five reacts to failure by making bad decisions, as he does.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoooo boy this chapter got long but OH WELL.
> 
> I need someone to physically stop me from trying to cram more apocalypse 2 exposition into this plot where there is no room for it.

“How exactly do you plan to go after them?” Luther asked. “I mean, Five marked like… twenty square blocks, we have no idea _where_ they are.”

“I don’t know,” Allison said, throwing open the door to Diego’s car. “But I’m going to drive until I see the car and hope to god they didn’t run into Harold Jenkins.”

Vanya hurried around the car to get into the passenger seat.

Luther groaned. “Okay, but I’m saying here with Diego in case they come back. If you don’t find them in an hour, come back and check if we found anything out. And be careful!” He turned around, narrowly avoiding Ben as he raced to the car.

“Sorry, forgot I was solid,” Ben called hurriedly.

Luther waved at him as though to say, _No big deal,_ hurrying back up the steps.

Allison started the car, pulling out of their parking space in record time. “I’m going to loop around the outside of the search area, keep an eye out down the streets, okay?”

“Yeah,” Vanya said. “Five’s probably okay though, right? Leonard – Harold – only knows the other him, so—“

“Five’s not that different,” Ben said. “If Harold went to the future to get to know him, he must have collected information about how Five approaches fights.”

Vanya bit at her lip. “I just can’t imagine Five trusting him enough to give away anything. I mean, he doesn’t even tell _us_ how he does things.”

“Yeah, but if you watch someone long enough you can find patterns,” Allison said. “And since we think there was something out there that Five would have been fighting regularly, he’d have the opportunity, even if Five didn’t trust him.”

“Jesus,” Vanya whispered. From the way Harold had easily lied to her, she could see him watching Five closely and committing everything to memory.

“I want to say at least they wouldn’t be stupid enough to go after him alone,” Ben said. “But I’d be lying to myself.”

“Good,” Allison said, flooring it. “Keep lying to me so I don’t lose my mind.”

**

Klaus _definitely_ did not know how to drive. He’d sort of gotten the basics at some point, but he generally knew better than to drive under the influence, which for him meant ever, and so he’d never really practiced. He’d argued it was probably for the best – a guy who couldn’t separate traffic accident victims from potential traffic accidents at first glance was not someone you wanted to put behind a wheel.

The gas pedal was a lot more responsive than he really wanted it to be, and the steering wheel was a lot _less_ responsive than he wanted it to be, but other than that he was doing an okay job doing what needed to be done – putting distance between them and a pair of psychotic, time-travelling assassins. There were definitely more bullet holes in the car than before, but Klaus was pretty sure he’d left them behind.

At least Five had stopped coughing and wheezing. “Still alive there?” he asked. It came out as more of a joke than he’d meant for it to be. He’d never actually seen anyone get the jump on Five. All of them had had their close calls even as kids, but Five was always one step ahead in a fight. Even when he needed to think to win, he found a good spot to hide until he had his plan. Seeing someone get their hands on his brother, not to mention getting him nearly unconscious – that was a new one.

There was no answer. Klaus looked over at Five.

His brother looked frozen stiff, staring out at the world like he couldn’t actually see it.

“Shit,” Klaus said, pulling over with less grace than he wanted to admit. Something crunched, and the car was no longer level, but it was stopped. “Five? Hey, Five.” He waved his hand in front of Five’s face, then grabbed his shoulder to shake it. “Five!”

Five startled at that, giving Klaus a terrified look that didn’t look right on his face, then slapped his hand away. He turned around, fumbling with the door until he could kick it open and dart out of the car.

“Shit,” Klaus whispered again, wrenching his own door open to follow him. He probably should have known better than to grab Five. “Five?”

Five bent over, hands on his knees as he tried to breathe.

Klaus wasn’t sure what to do with this. He kind of wanted to hug Five, but after the violent reaction he got from grabbing his shoulder, he wasn’t sure how that would go for either of them. Probably badly. “Five?” he tried again, trying to subtly lower his line of vision so Five didn’t feel as small.

“He knew,” Five gasped, wide eyes boring into the ground like the grass beneath him should have warned him about Harold. “He knew exactly when I’d hit my limit.” He looked up at Klaus, rage building in his eyes. That was comfortingly normal, but he still looked too shaken for Klaus to really be at ease. “How’d he know?”

“I don’t know,” Klaus said. The reality of the fact that his brother had nearly died was starting to sink in. Sure, as sober as he was, Five would be back before Klaus could blink, but that was little comfort. Klaus had grown up with the fear that any moment he’d turn around and see Five lingering behind him, and he wasn’t keen on letting it happen now.

Five looked back at the ground, blinking as he thought. He was thinking hard enough Klaus could practically hear the gears churning. “He didn’t just get a job with the Commission, he made a deal with them,” Five hissed. “He must have convinced them that we’d always do something about the apocalypse, and they gave him all the tools he needed to get rid of us.”

“What do you mean?” Klaus asked.

Five straightened up to give Klaus a venomous glare. Klaus knew the anger wasn’t directed at him right now, but there sure was a lot of it. “I mean, he took a goddamn briefcase and he travelled to the future to pose as a survivor and figure out my limits!” he shouted. “He knew exactly how to get me! He’s been planning this for _years_ and he _knows me!”_

“Okay,” Klaus said. “That’s not great, but…”

Five’s eyes went distant again. “I can’t win,” he said, toneless. His hands were shaking, Klaus noted, barely refraining from taking them into his own and holding them still.

This was bad. Klaus was not the person to deal with this. He wasn’t sure who was. Allison, maybe, or Vanya, or Ben… Possibly a trained mental health professional. “Sure you can,” he tried. “Five, you already ended one—“

“No,” Five breathed. Klaus had no idea what his tone was. “There’s always something. I _stopped_ the apocalypse and there was another one right behind it!” Desperation flitted over his face, gone as quickly as it came, replaced by a breathless rage. “We had all the puzzle pieces and now _Harold Jenkins…”_ He gestured wildly in the direction they’d come from.

“Five, hey, we still have like… four… five days – I don’t know I’m not great at counting – and we’re going to keep trying until the end. At least we found him, now we can go home and—”

“I came back because I assumed I could save everyone,” Five said. He wasn’t looking at Klaus, but unlike his usual dismissive attitude, now Klaus wondered if Five even remembered Klaus was there. Or, he realized with a sinking feeling, alive. “But what if the end of the world really is inevitable like she said?”

“Come on, Five,” Klaus said. “I mean… timeline 2 you or whatever wasn’t alone. There are survivors now, you changed things, and—“

“You’re not _getting_ it!” Five snarled, and there was something to it that made Klaus go quiet. “If I can’t save everyone, if the end of the world is inevitable, I have to focus my efforts. I _need_ to figure out a way to save the six of you instead!”

_Oh,_ Klaus thought, though sadly the first thing out of his mouth was, “Wow, we really mean the world to you, huh?”

“Shut. The. Hell. Up!” Five screamed. “When will this stop being a joke to you?! I found all your bodies in two different lifetimes, broken and bloody and rotting, and I’m _not_ doing it _again!”_

 “Hey, whoa whoa,” Klaus said, holding his hands up in a peace offering. “Sorry, sorry. Look.” He slipped closer to Five, barely refraining from grabbing him. “Five. Listen. I… get it. I mean, maybe not the suddenly appearing at the end of the world to find my whole family dead, I can’t relate to that, but the… the flashbacks and the… general existential horror. I get those. I know… That.” He stopped, cringing at how it had all come out.

“I don’t give a shit about your flashbacks!” Five shouted. “Much less mine! You’re all. Going. To. _Die._ How is that so hard for you to understand? I don’t have time for a heart to heart, I don’t have time to be—be—“

“Deeply and wildly traumatized?” Klaus offered.

“Whatever! I don’t have _time_ for _any_ of it!”

Klaus contemplated his choices. There were definitely a lot of good ones, probably all ones Allison would think of. But Allison wasn’t here, and Klaus couldn’t think of any. So, he did the best thing he could think of – bad as it was – and punched Five in the face.

Five groaned in pain, putting his hand over his mouth. “What the _hell_ ,” he managed.

“This is the first fight you’ve ever lost in your entire goddamn life,” Klaus said. “You’ve been planning how to stop the apocalypse for… somewhere between 45 to 60 _years_ and you’re going to give up because you lost _one_ fight?”

Five stared at him.

“Who cares if Harold knows your limits?” Klaus said. “He didn’t succeed in killing you, did he? You’re alive, I’m alive, we’re all alive, and we’re going to go home and we’re going to _win_.”

“Why did you _punch_ me?”

Klaus groaned, raising his hands to the sky. “Because you were being an idiot!”

“I was _not_ ,” Five said, sounding so ridiculously like a 13 year old that Klaus felt like he was also 13 again.

“Yes, you were! Saving the world and saving us is the same damn thing! If we can stay alive, we can stop this. And we are, in fact, alive!” He waved his hands in a gesture not even he know the purpose of. “Now are we going home to figure this out or not?!”

Five seemed to recognize that Klaus was right for a split second, staring at him with his hand on his split lip. Klaus cautiously relaxed, at which point Five tackled him with surprising force for someone his size.

**

“There!” Vanya shouted. The car was halfway on the curb, headlights still on. Her stomach lurched, though part of that might have been Allison wrenching the car into park so she could vault out of her seat and into the street.

Vanya raced after her, expecting the worst, but on the other side of the car, Klaus and Five were sitting on the curb, casual as if they had just gone out for some food and ended up here to hang out. The only thing wrong, other than the car on the curb, was that they both looked considerably worse for wear.

Five’s hand was bloody, his lip split, bruises under his jaw. Klaus was holding a tissue to his own bloody nose. “I’m just saying, the guy seduced a lesbian in three days,” he was muttering, while Five responded with a series of increasingly weary whispers of “no” under his breath.

“What the hell happened to you two?” Allison asked, drawing their attention.

“To me?” Klaus asked. “Mostly him.” He pointed at Five.

“You hit me first,” Five said. His hair was in disarray and he was covered in grass.

“I couldn’t think of anything better to do,” Klaus whined.

Five gave him a tired, judgmental look, then looked back at Allison. “We found Harold Jenkins.”

“Jesus,” Allison said, bending down to get a better look at the bruises, the tips of her fingers settling on his cheek. Vanya could see him trying not to pull away, but his eyes were boring into Allison like he was trying to will her away. “Did he do that?”

“Yep,” Klaus said, looking at the bloody tissue. “Then I summoned a minor ghost army to save his ass.”

“So he nearly killed you,” Allison said, her voice a stern reprimand. “Fuck, Five, did you go after him alone?”

“Yes,” Klaus muttered, earning a glare from Five. “What, you did! You didn’t even say anything, you just vanished. What would you have done if I hadn’t ducked fast enough and Cha-Cha had shot me? Huh? Smug, self absorbed little bastard.”

“Sorry,” Five said, wiping blood off his lip.

“Thank you,” Klaus replied. “Apology accepted.”

“What the hell did you two do to each other?” Ben asked, somewhere between impressed and horrified.

**

Five swallowed. His throat was still sore, but at least he could breathe without pain. The bruising didn’t look bad on the outside, but his larynx was still complaining about the situation, and every twinge seemed to bring up a dozen new phantom memories of Harold that made his head ache. He stretched his neck and tried to breathe through it while Grace wrapped his hand.

He watched her for a moment. She was cool to the touch, and she always had the same smile on her face. Five had never been able to see her as a person, exactly. He’d always assumed that what humanity was in her that wasn’t in Sir Reginald had been programmed by Pogo. He called her Mom because everyone else needed it, not because he’d believed it.

But knowing she’d been the only part of his family to survive – or to be revived – in the apocalypse made that thought a lot harder to stick to. As she worked, he felt a relief in his chest that he couldn’t explain – a little like he’d felt when he’d gone back to the store to find Delores exactly where she was supposed to be, as she was when he found her.

That was probably an artifact from the other version of himself he’d overridden with his latest jump in time, but whatever the source, it was comforting to have Grace holding his hand. Not as overwhelming as the now-foreign human touch his siblings all wanted to give, but not as empty as the apocalypse had been.

A quiet compromise between what Five wanted and what he could actually handle.

“Can you keep a secret?” he asked.

“Of course, silly,” Grace said, reaching up to tilt his face so she could wipe off his bloody lip. Having someone touch his face made his skin crawl with both discomfort and desire, but the pragmatic reason behind it made it easier not to jerk away from the touch.

“I might go after Harold on my own again,” he said. Saying it out loud really made it clear how stupid of an idea it was, but how could he do anything else? He didn’t want his family near Harold Jenkins ever again.

She hummed. It was refreshing not to hear judgment in her tone. Even Delores would have scolded him for the idea.

“He almost killed me. I know he has a plan to kill them too. And he’s done it before. I think I can find him, but I don’t know if I can bring myself to tell _them_ that,” he muttered. “I can always try again, but I know how this ends for them if they fail. Now that I know who Harold is, what to expect, I know I can beat him. I’ve seen the Commission, I’ve seen _him_. I can do it without taking them into danger.”

Grace pulled her hand away, smiling as she folded the cloth and put it away. “Your brothers and sisters are stronger than you might think, Five,” she said softly, without judgment. She’d been the first to drop the ‘Number’ from his name when he’d refused a real one, and he had to admit, he preferred it.

“I know that,” Five whispered. Klaus had surprised him today, in more ways than one. Though he was loathe to admit it, that scared Five. He didn’t like being surprised by things, and he liked trusting them even less.

“I always find it useful to sleep on a difficult question,” Grace said, patting his knee.

He jerked the knee away on reflex, then forcibly relaxed it, but she didn’t try again. “I can’t really sleep well,” he murmured.

“If you’d like some hot chocolate, you only need to ask,” she said. She didn’t try to touch him, which was both relieving and disappointing. Five didn’t know, exactly, just as he still didn’t know whether or not to view Grace as a person. Her responses felt programmed and genuine all at once.

“Thanks, Mom,” he said, on reflex. Everyone else had always thanked her for the help she’d given them, and Five wasn’t going to be the one to tell them to their faces that they didn’t thank the phones or refrigerator for _their_ jobs.

“Of course, Five,” she said, standing up and smiling once more as she strode out of the room, skirt swishing.

Five tried to imagine her with him in the apocalypse. The absurd idea of her standing there, waiting for him when he’d found all his siblings dead left him with a hollow, unidentifiable feeling in his chest.

He took a deep breath, throat protesting, then made his way downstairs.

Klaus was on the phone, curled around it like a teenage girl talking to a crush. There was a stupid smile on his face that was probably the happiest Five had ever seen his brother. Not the manic grin Five was used to, but something comfortable.

“It’s just been a crazy week,” Klaus was saying. He caught sight of Five before Five could tiptoe away again. “Hey, I should go. My little brother needs me.”

“I don’t,” Five said.

“Bye. Thanks for listening. Good luck with bingo,” Klaus said. He smiled again, then put down the phone.

“Boyfriend or girlfriend?” Five asked, accepting the fact that he wasn’t going to escape this conversation.

“Neither,” Klaus said. “Sort of. You know, tale as old as time, I still love him but I met him when he was 23 and he’s now 73 and it’s weird.” He sighed wistfully. “I still think I can win him over, though.”

“I don’t know why I ask about your life,” Five said. “I always regret it.”

Klaus barked a sarcastic laugh that somehow turned into a sardonic, “I love you too.”

Five sighed, stepping closer to him, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Don’t ever mention this again, but… thank you. For saving my life. I… owe you one.”

“You’re welcome,” Klaus said, sincere for a moment before he gained a mischievous twinkle in his eye again. “I realize that took a lot of bravery and—“

“Why do you have to make everything difficult?” Five muttered, turning on his heel to get out of there as quickly as possible.

“It’s _good for you!”_ Klaus called after him.

Five walked faster, nearly walking right into Vanya.

“Oh,” she said. “Sorry.” She tilted her head to look at his bruises. “How are you feeling?”

“I’d feel better if everyone stopped asking me that,” Five muttered.

“Sorry,” she said again.

He bit the inside of his lip in frustration. “It’s fine,” he said. “How are you? We haven’t really talked since you—”

“Blew up the moon?” she interjected, with a relieving amount of dry humor.

He shrugged. That was, in fact, the truth. He wasn’t going to pretend it wasn’t.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I mean, this is all really weird, but… It’s nice, too, I guess. I have a girlfriend now, which is… weird.”

Five narrowed his eyes. “I’m sorry, were you under the impression you were straight?”

“You knew?” Vanya asked.

“It wasn’t exactly hard to figure out,” Five said. “You wrote a book in which you describe every woman as beautiful and fail to give any men physical descriptions at all.”

Vanya opened her mouth, then closed it. “I thought that was jealousy,” she admitted, finally.

“Well, that explains Leonard, I suppose,” Five said. “Now that I’ve seen him in person, he’s definitely _not_ attractive.”

“No, he wasn’t really…” Vanya said, with a small half-laugh. “I guess he just said what I wanted to hear. That I was…”

“Special?” Five offered. She nodded. “Yeah, well, looking back that was probably obvious too.” He made a face. “I never liked you because you were ordinary, you know.”

“Then why did you like me?” Vanya asked.

“Because you were the kind of person who would make sandwiches every night for a person who’d been missing for years,” Five said. “Which, by the way, I don’t actually get. Did you really think I’d just leave if the house was dark?”

She looked down, laughing awkwardly. “I guess I just didn’t want you to feel like we wouldn’t welcome you back.”

Five felt a genuine smile creep onto his face, though it was soured by the regret that he couldn’t have been there for Vanya when she needed him the most. “Because you knew what that was like, I suppose,” he said. “Not being welcome in your own home.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Vanya said. “But… It feels different now. Everyone’s been trying really hard, I can tell.”

“Good,” Five said. “I’m glad.”

She stood in front of him, awkwardly searching for something more to say, then finally took a deep breath and looked up at him. “I’m going to go to bed,” she said. “I’m exhausted.”

“Me too,” Five murmured. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” she replied, shuffling down the hall.

He watched her go, swallowing hard. There was no way he wanted her within a ten mile radius of Harold Jenkins ever again. He’d manipulated her, had lured her into a relationship under false pretenses, had _hurt_ her. Five wanted to kill him for that alone.

“I’m just going to do us both a favor and pretend you standing in the middle of the hall scowling into the darkness isn’t concerning,” Diego said as he walked past. “Nice bruises by the way. Don’t suppose this’ll teach you not to run off alone anymore?”

“Verdict’s still out,” Five replied. “Glad your friend’s alive again, by the way.”

Diego stopped at that. “Yeah, me too,” he said. “Your powers did us all a real solid, old man. Who’d have guessed it, huh?”

“Always a pleasure talking with you, Diego,” Five shot back.

“Hey,” Diego said, tone dropping into something painfully serious. Five grimaced. “I mean it. Don’t skip out on us again. You’re lucky Klaus actually figured out what to do this time. None of us want to see _you_ dead either, you know.”

“Yeah, well, the constant badgering about my wellbeing from literally everyone in this house was a bit of a clue,” Five said, giving Diego the most sarcastic look he could muster.

“Asshole,” Diego muttered over his shoulder, waving dismissively as he stormed off. “Oh yeah, unless you want to see our brother and sister making out, I wouldn’t go near the kitchen!”

Five rolled his eyes. “Thanks,” he called back, heading upstairs instead. He wanted to return to his room, but he found himself making his way to Ben’s room instead. He knocked on the open door, drawing Ben’s attention out of his book.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

“Can’t sleep, I suppose,” Five said.

“Have you tried laying down and closing your eyes?” Ben asked.

“Wow, _genius_ suggestion,” Five drawled, looking at the cover of the book. It was one of Ben’s favorites from when they were kids.

“I’m serious, you look ready to drop.”

Five sighed, sitting down on the side of Ben’s bed. This was awkward as all hell, but there was only so long he could avoid Ben. Ben had been, in some ways, his best friend. He was smart, unthreatening, and kind. The things that people needed to tolerate Five and vice versa. “I have nightmares,” he admitted.

“Yeah, so did Klaus,” Ben sighed. “All the time. Talked in his sleep all damn night. Not that I needed sleep as a dead guy, but…”

Five hummed noncommittally. He was only halfway listening.

“He also gets the same look when he’s about to do something stupid because he doesn’t know what to do with his demons,” Ben said.

Five glanced at Ben sidelong. “I’m not Klaus.”

“No, Klaus needs enough drugs to kill a horse and a hell of a lot of effort to be as bad at people as you are,” Ben said, rolling over to lean his head on his hand and look at Five.

“Death has made you much more aggravating.”

Ben snorted. “Yeah, probably,” he said. “You’ve never been good with people, it’s no surprise that being alone for so long has made you even worse at it.” He grinned. “But practice makes perfect, right? How about you tell me what’s on your mind?”

The offer was tempting, Five had to admit. Ben was soothing to see, a clear and present reminder that Five hadn’t failed entirely, even if he hadn’t quite succeeded just yet. He wanted to tell him, but trying to explain brought back the images that Five was trying to avoid – both in the real world and in thought. Images of his family, dead, of the ashes and ruins, of the nebulous new apocalypse he couldn’t remember but which weighed on him like he could. “Maybe later,” he said. He sighed, looking away from Ben. “Goodnight, Ben. I’ll try to get at least an hour in.”

He felt Ben’s eyes on his back as he went, but he didn’t look back.

If Delores was here, she’d tear him a new one. She’d tell him to stop being a coward, to trust his family to stay alive.

But Delores wasn’t here, and Five had a gun to steal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So who wants to bet that come morning, Five's not gonna be in that house anymore?
> 
> I spent a lot of time ruminating over whether or not Five would make the same mistake twice in a row and then I remembered that he got a message from the Handler and immediately left his family alone without telling them so like. You know. He put all his eggs in the same basket and that basket is quantum mechanics.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha you thought.
> 
> ... Don't get your hopes up, though, Five's still got a lot of dumbass panic to burn through.
> 
> Bit of a warning for gorey/horrifying imagery about midway, but nothing too explicit, I think?

“Huh,” Ben said.

He’d come to the kitchen for breakfast, and he had not at all expected to find Five there. Five raised an eyebrow at him over his coffee.

“I’ll be honest, I thought you’d be gone by now,” Ben said.

“You know,” Five said wryly, “so did I.”

Ben grabbed an apple from the counter. “I guess you’re not quite as stupid as you look.”

Five’s bewilderment at that was a joy to see. Ben chuckled to himself.

“Death really did change you,” Five muttered.

“It does that.”

Five gave him a sour look. “Well, anyway. I know how to find Harold Jenkins.”

“Is that what had you all antsy last night? Deciding whether or not you wanted us to know where he is?” Ben asked.

“And here I thought the worst thing about my family was that they’re all imbeciles,” Five said under his breath.

“Ooh, have I risen above imbecile?”

“Yes, straight to a thorn in my side.”

Ben grinned at that. “That’s high praise from you.”

“You’re disgusting,” Five said, standing up to finish his coffee elsewhere. He was quickly headed off by Klaus.

“Oho!” Klaus said. “You’re still here!”

“Was everyone in this house expecting me to run off in the middle of the night?” Five asked, with a long suffering sigh.

Klaus pretended to think about it. “Yes. In fact, I’m fairly certain Allison and Luther stayed up last night so they could catch you red handed if you tried.”

“Great,” Five said wearily. “Good to know.”

“Hey, old baby brother, you nearly got murdered last night,” Klaus said. “Of course we’re concerned for you.”

“Call me baby brother one more time and I’m going to burn your face off.”

“No burning faces,” Diego said, while Klaus mouthed,  _ I said old  _ with faux offence. “Also, thanks, Five, now I owe Vanya ten bucks.”

“Right,” Five muttered to himself. “Thank you, Vanya, for having at least a little bit of faith in me.”

Vanya looked up from where she had been shuffling into the kitchen, half asleep. “Oh, no, I just wanted to bet against Diego. I had the ten bucks ready and everything.”

Five stared at her in disappointment. “Thanks,” he said finally, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Hey, why’d you want to bet against me?” Diego said.

“Because you get so mad about it,” Vanya said, shrugging. “It’s kind of endearing.”

Diego made a noncommittal noise of frustration at her and started scrounging up something to eat. Klaus grinned as Allison and Luther finally entered the kitchen too, yawning. “Long night?”

“Yeah,” Luther said, giving Five a look. “Shockingly, for nothing.”

“You’re welcome,” Five said, leaning against the wall, clearly having given up on his escape to drink coffee in peace.

“How much did you sleep?”Allison asked, stretching her shoulders.

“Two, three hours, maybe?” Five said. “Doesn’t matter. I spent most of the night looking at Diego’s list, and I know where Harold is.”

“Oh?” Klaus said. “Do tell.”

“They had a good set up,” Five said. “But Klaus took them by surprise.”

Klaus held his hands up like he was inviting applause, then dropped them and looked back at Five when he got none.

“So, they’d probably head back to their hotel to regroup, lick their wounds,” Five said. He unfolded the list. “I’ve been looking at all the hotels in the area, and this one is in view of the building we found last night. It’d be a good place for them to stay and check if we were nearing the place even when they weren’t actively waiting for us.”

Diego took the paper, tracing lines on an invisible map. “Yeah, with a good set of binoculars, that checks out.”

“The Commission can afford military grade tech,” Five said. “They could easily swing for a pair of heavy duty binoculars.”

“Okay,” Klaus said. “So we go check out the hotel?”

“Together,” Diego blurted. “No one goes in there against them alone.”

“Calm down, Diego,” Five said, giving him a look. “We’re not Detective Patch. We know what we’re walking into.”

Diego huffed. “Fine. But we’re doing pairs like we did during the search.”

Five rolled his eyes, but he folded up the list and put it away. “Fine. But I’m driving,” he insisted.

**

Diego swallowed. This wasn’t the same hotel as last time, but he still remembered all too well how Eudora had died in a situation not too far off this one. This hotel wasn’t as run down as that one had been, but that didn’t help much.

Swallowing down his apprehension, he turned to try to convince them to make a plan, but Allison and Vanya were already heading down the ground floor hallway and Five was halfway up the stairs to the first floor.

“Hey, whoa, whoa,” Diego said, running after him to grab his jacket. “No. We agreed on a buddy system.”

“Jesus, Diego, I’m just taking a look,” Five griped. “Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to c-calm down,” Diego said. “I found her face down in a hotel room, just left there, you have any idea what that’s like?”

“Yes, I do,” Five snapped. “Besides, you can come along if you want. I’m just checking out the top floor, it’s going to have the best view of the hideout.”

“Fine,” Diego said, following Five in silence. Five’s  _ yes I do _ lingered in his mind. Did he mean  _ them?  _ Diego sighed, keeping an eye on Five as they both made their way down the halls, listening carefully to each door.

Five stopped suddenly, waving for Diego.

“You hear something?” Diego asked, hurrying over to step behind him.

Five backed up a little, squinting, then rocked from one foot to another. “This room would have the best view of the building,” he said. “And…” He tapped the Do Not Disturb sign on the door. “That’s protocol.”

He moved to jump, but Diego caught him again. “What did I just say?”

“I’m just opening the door, Diego,” Five hissed impatiently. “It’ll take me less than a second.”

Diego scowled at him, but relented. “Fine. Go ahead.”

“Thank you,” Five griped, vanishing. A moment later, the door clicked open.

Diego readied a knife, pushing the door out of the way and creeping inside. The room appeared to be empty, but Diego wasn’t taking any chances. He elbowed Five behind him, earning an extremely cross look, but Five let him tiptoe up to the bathroom while Five inspected the rest of the room.

Diego slipped past the closet and to the bathroom, peeking inside. No one. Just to be sure, he pulled aside the curtain too.

“Hey, Diego,” Five called.

“What?” Diego asked, poking his head out of the bathroom.

Five had his hand on the deadbolt for the door, and was putting away a knife he’d been holding to it. “I really am sorry about this,” he said, locking the bolt and removing the handle from it.

“What the—“ Diego said, but Five was gone, leaving only the room to hear the final, defeated, “—hell.”

**

Five hurried down the back stairwell before any of his siblings saw him.

It wasn’t as though he hadn’t noticed Allison and Luther’s vigil. Diego had all but given it away by warning him away from the kitchen, where Allison and Luther were probably discussing where Five would go. As though Allison was going to drop the ball for romance after the way she’d looked at Five when she’d seen him on the curb.

At any rate, it hadn’t been hard to sneak past them just to get the gun into the trunk of the car, even though he’d been too exhausted to jump. Now he pulled grabbed it from there, slinging it over his shoulder so he could find a different car to hotwire – otherwise, it would be a matter of hours before Diego tracked down the car, letting all of his siblings stumble into the Harold situation before Five had time to end it.

Keeping an eye on the hotel to make sure none of his siblings saw him sneaking off, he found a car a street or two down, quickly jumping into it and fiddling with the wires until it started.

His family was going to be pissed at him, that much was certain, but they’d be alive, and that was what mattered. They could all hate him for the rest of his life for all he cared, if it meant they got to live theirs. It would take them a while to find Diego, realize Five was gone, then decide how to get Diego out of the room. Then they’d notice that Five had the keys to both cars, and neither had left the parking lot.

Before they had any chance to figure out where Five had gone, Harold would be dead, and he wouldn’t be able to hurt them anymore.

He had a good guess where Harold had to be given his first hideout, and after hearing Harold and fighting him, he was fairly sure he’d recognize it the moment he drove past it. It had, after all, been where he’d found his entire family dead. Judging from the way that image was seared into his mind the first time around, it would be clear even in his muddled quantum-memories.

And indeed, the moment he saw it through the car window, his stomach twisted with the phantom knowledge. This was where he’d found them. This was the place he’d found and then avoided for 14 years. He rolled down the block, swallowing hard before he parked and grabbed the gun.

He jumped back up the block, finding a good corner to hide in and measure up his options.

He needed a place to hide which would still give him a clear shot. He didn’t want to get up close - his nap last night had resorted his powers, but with Harold’s expertise he couldn’t risk being in arm’s reach if they ended up on the fritz again. 

He peeked around the corner. There weren’t any windows that would give him a good angle, meaning he had to position himself over the entrance. He eyed the entrance to the garage. It seemed to be the only way in or out, meaning if he hid and waited for Harold to leave the building, he could take him out from one of the nearby rooftops.

He peeked out at the building again, a strange feeling washing over him. His hand tightened on the gun.

He could have done this with the others, he realized. He was trying not to think about it, but it was hard to ignore. If he was just going to hide and wait, they would have been safe with him. He’d never have to take them near Harold like this. And what exactly would he tell them when they asked him why he’d tricked them?

Would he admit that he’d locked his brother into a hotel room, stolen his keys and run off because of cowardice? It was, after all, cowardice that had brought him here alone.

The sight of that building had the grief and longing he’d compartmentalized for decades threatening to break loose. He’d waited so long to have them back and now he was running from them in an effort not to lose them again.

He should have at least told them…

He could practically hear Delores’ jab.  _ Of course you should have. You knew what the right thing to do was and you ignored it because of your pride and fear. You always do this, Five, you always try to hide behind the idea that you’re better than everyone else, _ she’d say, and Five would say, probably,  _ I know that, you don’t have to tell me! _

Now that he was here, though, he could just go through with it. Or he could do what he should have done and stayed with his family. He hesitated.

The timeline did rhyme. He’d missed his chance because he’d ignored Vanya in an effort to protect her last time, and now he was ignoring all of them at once. He gripped the gun, taking a deep breath. “Shit,” he whispered to himself. They’d gotten inside his head with all their protective bullshit.

He hissed out a quiet growl, turned to go, and then—

_ Five was suddenly not alone. There were two women and a man he’d never seen before, but he was certain he knew them. Broken glass and debris covered the misty streets, but the buildings around them still stood, silent and dark. Three cop cars stood before the building he’d been watching, one overturned, several bodies strewn around them. _

_ “I’ll check it out alone,” he muttered to his companions. They didn’t argue – they knew how easily he could pop in and out of buildings. _

_ He raced across the street before anything could see him, slipping behind the overturned car and then into the garage. Bodies were littered across the garage, wearing some kind of black and red military gear, looking as though they’d been thrown around by a whirlwind. Five pulled his scarf over his mouth to avoid the smell of rot, finding a door. Something had happened here, he knew it, and it might give him answers. _

_ He pushed in the door, slipping inside carefully, pulling out his knife. Nothing moved. He propped open the door, then made his way inside. _

_ There had been a fight here, that was for sure. Blood snaked up the hallway, like someone had been dragged, and there were bits of debris like something had blown up. _

_ He switched on his flashlight, nearly tripping over something as he did. _

_ He looked down. Something snaked down the hall after the trail of blood, something long and thick and tentacle-like. _

_ Five felt his hand shake as he followed the tentacle with his light. _

_ His body screamed at him to run, but he took another step forward. Ridiculously, childishly, he whispered, “Ben?” _

_ As though the smell didn’t already tell him everything he didn’t want to know. _

_ He took another step, then another, until the light fell on a body. The face was rotting away, and it was much too old, but Five knew who it was. His hand shook, casting eerily active shadows with the light. _

_ Another step, and he could see another body. The dumb clothes, the tattoo on his arm and hands – Klaus. _

_ He couldn’t breathe, but he had to keep going. If he didn’t keep going, he’d never stop asking himself. He stumbled through the hall between Klaus and Ben – where he belonged, some morbid part of him said, Number Five – and looked around. _

_ To his right, a large body, the blood splattered behind him painting a tale of several shots. Luther. Reaching towards him, thrown against the wall carelessly had to be Allison. Across from her, Diego. Past Luther, there was another body. Five swallowed down his horror and crept closer. Maybe it was the person who’d done this. Maybe, right before they’d died, they’d gotten them, and Five would know… _

_ He swept his light over her. He could see the tattoo, but it was a little oddly placed, not quite where Five’s was. The long hair… “Vanya,” he whispered. No. She was  _ ordinary _ , she wasn’t supposed to be with them, she wasn’t supposed to die with them… _

_ He collapsed to the floor, retching. Grief engulfed him like he could have never imagined. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t blink away the tears, he couldn’t, he couldn’t, he  _ couldn’t—

A loud bang startled him from his thoughts. “Shit,” he hissed, already running for cover. A  _ flashback? _ Now, of all times? He dove behind the corner just as Cha-Cha fired at him again. He fumbled for the gun, cocking it and preparing to swing out and shoot her before she could shoot him. It would mean jumping right as he fired, which required the perfect timing.

Another shot pinged over his head, and he got down. This was coming from closer.

Dammit, Harold must have gone around him while he was checked out –  _ stupid, stupid – _ and now he was too close for Five to effectively aim at him with this gun. He grabbed his knife instead, jumping close to drive it into Harold’s side.

This time, he was actually fast enough to get a hit in, but Harold blocked quickly enough that it only hit his elbow instead of his liver like Five had planned. Just as rapidly, Harold hooked his foot into Five’s and grabbed his arm.

_ Shit _ .

Jumping out of being grabbed was one thing, but being tangled up with someone like this made it difficult not to drag them along on a jump, thereby exhausting himself entirely without making any improvements on the situation. He had to concentrate.

Harold’s elbow connected with his face, and Five kicked him in the stomach. If he could just get it down to a single hand on Five, Five could safely jump away and get far enough for a shot. And he had to do it fast, before Cha-Cha figured out how to shoot him without murdering Harold too.

He kneed at Harold’s chest again, switching the knife to his other hand to drive it into Harold’s neck. The angle wasn’t great – it might land in his collarbone instead of his jugular like Five hoped – but it would loosen Harold’s grip.

But Harold was expecting the attack to the neck, clearly, because he grabbed Five’s wrist as he went, wrenching it aside, probably hard enough to fracture Five’s arm at this angle. The pain and grinding of bones, however, faded into the background. What Five truly noticed was that, as Harold had pulled his arm aside to keep his throat safe, Five’s knife had instead slid into his Harold’s eye with a horrible squelch.

All the breath in his lungs escaped with the realization. The eye still in his pocket felt almost like it was burning, boring a hole into Five’s side.

Though his whole body felt frozen, he only hesitated a moment before he remembered that at this point, he had to either kill Harold  _ now _ or get away at any cost and warn the others, but even that moment was a moment too long.

Something sharp hit his injured arm, drawing his attention. A dart.

“Shit,” he breathed, the world suddenly spinning. His hand slipped from the handle of the knife unbidden. Harold let go of him, grasping at the knife still in his eye. Five stumbled, pulling the dart out as he jumped, but he could only jump a few feet before he found himself on the ground, vision swimming. He had to jump again, somewhere where Harold couldn’t reach him until he cleared his head.

With some difficulty, he found his legs and got them under himself, propelling himself forward sloppily. Just a little more, just one more jump…

He heard himself hit the ground as though it was far away. He groaned, trying to will his limbs into moving, his power into activating, anything at all, but his consciousness was fading fast. He was dead meat.

Did he really mind dying? His family flashed before his eyes, the happy picture that he’d never gotten to see in his timeline swimming before him. If he died, would they be safe? He’d done his part in warning them, and they were far away now, maybe they’d make it this time. In that case, it was worth it.

A kick to his side had him on his back. Cha-Cha’s face swam over him, patting him down for weapons. Five tried, weakly, to stop her from pulling the eye out of his pocket, but he couldn’t feel his arms. “Hey,” she said, tossing it out of Five’s line of sight. “The kid brought you a present.”

“Oh,” Harold said, stumbling over. His face swam over Five, one hand holding his bleeding eye, the other the glass one. Five tried to move again, maybe reach for the eye, smash it in one last, desperate attempt, but it was futile. “Well thanks, Five,” Five heard, and then there was nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna be like "well, listen, no one ever said Harold wanted to kill Five last time," but then I realized that yes, Harold did, but as we know Harold is a LIAR.
> 
> On the next time, the Hargreeves siblings get a present and Allison gets scary.
> 
> EDIT: I totally forgot to mention that this chapter is a very rare instance of me actually pairing a song to a scene - the last scene goes well with Son Lux - The Fool You Need.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's getting close enough to the end that a.) I do not know how to hint at anything without giving it all away and b.) I am continually forgetting what I've actually published, so anything clever I might have to say in these notes is just getting a lot more "Haha gosh things are bad for Five huh."

“Nothing,” Luther muttered, returning to where Klaus and Ben were waiting outside of the reception. “I asked at the desk, but they don’t give out information about guests.”

“Maybe we can get Diego to flash a badge at them, see if that jogs their memory,” Klaus suggested. “Nice having a cop in the family, huh?”

“Let’s just go find the others first,” Luther said. “Maybe they found something.”

“Allison and Vanya took the second floor,” Ben said. “We should start there and then grab Five and Diego.”

Luther nodded, heading up the stairs, Ben and Klaus on his heels. “Allison? Vanya?” he whispered. He didn’t want to bring too much attention to themselves.

Ben jogged down to the corner to peek around, then waved. “Anything?”

Allison and Vanya joined him a moment later, shaking their heads. “Not a peep. Though, if they’re here, they’d be quiet about it, right?” Allison asked.

“Five and Diego took the top floor,” Luther said. “Maybe they found something.”

Vanya nodded, and they made their way upstairs.

It was entirely empty. Allison hurried down to one corner, Ben the other. “I don’t see them,” he said.

“Where’d they go?” Allison asked.

A loud thud startled all of them into looking at one of the rooms. “Shit,” Klaus said. “That can’t be good.”

Luther pushed him back. “Stay behind me.”

“Wait, wait,” Vanya said. “I should go first, I can actually attack at a long range, right?”

Luther blinked at her a few times. His first impulse was to insist that no, she would get hurt, obviously, but then he had to relent. It wasn’t actually obvious. “Are you sure you can use your powers quickly if you need to?” he asked.

She nodded. “I’ve been practicing here and there.”

“Okay,” Luther said, though part of him wanted to point out that practicing here and there wasn’t the same as using your powers in a tense situation. He positioned himself so he could tackle her out of the way of any bullets if necessary. He was working on trusting his siblings, and this was step one. “Get ready, I’m going to knock on the door.” He slid closer, knocking loudly on the door, Vanya crouched across from him.

“Hey!” came Diego’s voice, muffled by the door. “Is that you guys?”

“Diego?” Luther asked, straightening up. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Just get the door open!” Diego shouted back.

“Uh,” Luther said, looking around at the others. “Hang on, Allison can get a key card.”

“No use, it’s deadbolted.”

“Alright,” Luther muttered. “Then stand back!”

He stood up, lining his shoulder up with the door, then swiftly jammed it open, the frame splintering around the bolt. He pushed the door fully open, raising his brows at Diego while he stormed out. “What the hell happened? Where’s Five?”

“Son of a bitch locked me in and took off,” Diego snapped.

“What, Five?” Vanya asked.

“Yeah, _Five.”_

“Why would he do that?”

“Oh, no,” Klaus murmured. “Because he’s scared to death, that’s why.”

Ben groaned, looking at Klaus as the realization hit him too. “He didn’t want us near Harold Jenkins, so he gave us a distraction while he went after him alone. He knew we were all expecting him to do it last night, but that was never his plan.”

“He was being suspiciously agreeable,” Klaus muttered.

Diego patted down his jacket. “ _And_ he took my keys.”

“Well, he drove here, so that means he has both keys,” Luther muttered.

“Wait, but then we can… we can follow the car, right?” Klaus blurted. “I mean we know our own license plate number, right? Do we?”

“I do,” Ben said. “But it’s still in the parking lot. He must have hotwired a new one to throw us off.”

Vanya groaned. “Why is he _like_ this?”

“Who cares? We’re going to hotwire my own car now,” Diego said.

“Wh—“ Allison started. “And then what?”

“Then we find him, and then I’m gonna strangle him!”

Allison crossed her arms. “Where exactly are we going to find him?”

“He also took Diego’s list of places that might fit the bill,” Luther muttered.

“Then let’s go home and call Eudora to give us another copy,” Vanya suggested.

“Whatever, let’s just _go!_ ” Diego yelled, racing down the stairs.

**

Five had woken up in some strange places in his life. He usually knew where those places were, though. Right now, he had absolutely no idea.

His mouth was dry and his neck ached from how his head had been hanging, hair in his eyes. He was in a dark room in a chair, he surmised, trying to look around without alerting anyone that he’d woken up. The last thing he could remember was Cha-Cha and Harold looming over him, and that meant he needed the time to measure up his situation.

His hands and feet were shackled to the chair, which appeared to be bolted down. He tested the shackles, but they were tight and thick – even if he dislocated his thumbs he’d never get his hands out. Wriggling slightly proved the chair was also bolted down, leaving no room for him to tip or try to move it.

Someone had put a lot of thought into this chair.

Which really raised the question: why the hell was he the one in it? Putting effort into tying down a teleporter was foolish, unless someone knew something he didn’t.

He braced himself for something unpleasant and tried to jump.

It wasn’t like when he hit his limit. That was like trying to part space and time to just slip through the hole and arrive elsewhere, only to find that space and time was suddenly rubbery, warping but refusing to tear. Now, Five felt the tear, could all but taste the sensation he associated with slipping through, and then he was pulled back violently, his body snapping back into itself painfully with an electric shock.

He hissed, trying to breathe through the throbbing in his head.

“Oh good, it works,” Harold said from the open door.

Five swallowed down the pain to look him coolly in the eyes. The pieces were falling into place, but there were still some very big pieces that were missing. “Dad made contingency plans for all seven of us,” he muttered. “But he only kept the blueprints for the one he never built, right?” He’d probably destroyed the rest, hiding the remaining one where he thought it would never be found, just in case he did need it.

But Harold had found it, giving him the perfect way to cripple Five.

 _Thanks, Dad_ , he thought bitterly.

“You’ve always been quick, Five,” Harold said, laughing softly. “Of your siblings, you’re the most like your Dad. I enjoy that.”

Five narrowed his eyes. “Big fan of his?”

“You know I’m not, Five,” Harold said, his chuckling going dark. “He ripped my heart out without a care and never looked back. Which is why it’s going to be so satisfying to do what I’m going to do to _you_.”

Five smiled at him bitterly. “What, exactly, are you going to do to me?”

Harold smiled back. “Come on, Five,” he taunted. “Don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out yet.”

“Can’t wait for you to tell me,” Five muttered. He tried moving his feet, but the restraints around his ankles were just as tight. Leave it to Reginald to devise the perfect way to keep Five in one place and then practically hand it to a psychopath with a grudge.

 _The plans._ The bottom dropped out of Five’s stomach. Harold had stolen these plans before Five had arrived. He’d gone forward to find out everything he could about Five well before Five had been able to jump to this time, and there was no way he’d killed Reginald in the off chance that he _might_ find something useful.

“My family are a bunch of idiots,” Five said, slowly, “but they know what’s coming. They’re not stupid enough to help you just because you have me.”

“You’re their long lost brother,” Harold said, in a mockery of feeling. “They’d do anything to get you back. Then, of course, they’ll try to stop me, but I will win. We’ve both seen the bodies, Five.”

Five bit back the rising nausea. His mind couldn’t decide whether to show the ash covered, crushed bodies of his family, or the strewn about, rotting corpses, but it didn’t matter. He’d seen the eye that was looking at him clutched in his dead brother’s hand, and he could never forget that sight. Would being from a different timeline make a difference? If anything, his siblings were less functional than the ones in this timeline had been.

“God, after all the time you spent trying to save the world and your family,” Harold said, leaning in. Five tried to control his breathing – he didn’t want Harold to know how well he’d gotten to Five. “It must be hell to realize it’s all your fault. It’s really going to make watching them die…” He laughed, shrugging in amusement. “Well. It’s almost going to make up for the fact that I don’t have the time to put all your siblings through that kind of soul crushing horror. After all, I am on the clock.” He smiled at Five.

The eye was already in its place, but the bruising and cuts around it were still fresh, lending it a particularly haunting look. Five didn’t want to admit it, but seeing that glass eye actually looking at him, the glass eye that had been in his pocket for decades and would be again… It made him want to scream and run, but neither was an option.

He had to get out of here. He had to figure this out. He _couldn’t_ be the reason his family died. He’d take anything over that. His mind raced though options. He could think of something if he just stayed calm and considered all his options. He counted his breaths – he had no room for a flashback or a panic attack now.

This was probably about Reginald’s weapons. If Harold made a trade, though, he would eventually have to release Five from this contraption to hand him over, and if Five was fast enough, he could probably take out enough of the Commission agents here to make a dent – after all, they weren’t prepared for one of their own. If his idiot family could just stay alive until then, they had a chance.

“You’re still plotting,” Harold said. “You never give up on anything. I like that about you, too. It’s going to be so _satisfying_ watching you lose all hope.”

“I’m sure it will be,” Five spat. He was going to figure out a way out of this and then he was going to flay Harold alive. He had to.

Harold leaned in. “You left them, Five,” he whispered. “You left them, and I should have taken your place. I had the same birthday, I would have been a better brother than you ever could. But I could never measure up, because I didn’t have _powers_. But without those, you’re no better than me.”

Five scoffed. “That’s what this is about? I went missing and you thought it was an opening for _you?”_ The words were almost hysterically funny. Five had never been good at showing his feelings, but living in the Hargreeves family was a steady parade of secret, subtle attempts at saving his siblings day by day.

It was acting out before Reginald lost his patience with Diego. It was demanding to be trained more than you could handle so Klaus and Ben didn’t have to. It was spending hours pretending he didn’t have anything better to do than hang out with Vanya, knowing he was going to get punished for keeping Reginald waiting. It was intentionally slicing his hand open to get Mom’s attention when Allison shuffled past in the morning so she and Luther could have a moment of privacy after a rough mission.

Could Harold have done any of that? No. It was easy to see that Harold wanted the glory of being their brother with none of the thankless, exhausting work that lingered behind it.

“Don’t be so high and mighty. You think because you’re special, you deserve it all, but when the time comes for your family to die, you’ll be just as powerless as me,” Harold whispered, leaning in like they were school children sharing secrets. “See, your Dad liked your power a lot. He thought you were too arrogant for it, but he wanted to know _everything_ about it. So your ‘contingency plan’ doesn’t just contain you, it comes with a handy little feature to stimulate your powers too.”

Five clenched his teeth just in time to almost brace himself for what followed. Harold pushed a button beside the chair. The charge that ran through his body wasn’t any more painful than a severe static shock – and in the dry air in the future, he’d felt plenty of that. What was worse was his body’s best attempt at an involuntary jump. It was like suddenly being in freefall, and then being pulled right back with that _snap_ that felt like his organs had all forgotten where to be and were instead trying to displace each other.

“Shit,” he hissed, heart pounding and his body aching with aftershocks. His vision swam, and he blinked hard to clear it. He had to stay awake and aware if he was going to have any chance at escape. And he _had_ to have a chance at escape, because that was the only chance his family had at survival.

“I’ve noticed your limit is pretty dependent on distance,” Harold said, with faux seriousness. Five hated the glee in his good eye that seemed to be just as present in the haunting glass eye, but in all the wrong ways. “I bet it’s going to take a _while_ to get to that point with static jumps, isn’t it?”

**

Allison hurried inside, slamming her jacket to the side. Behind her, she heard yelling, but she made a beeline towards Five’s room. Maybe he’d left something, _anything_ that would tell them where he was.

She checked under the blankets, then under all the boxes and papers on the desk. Nothing. Of course, Five would be careful not to leave clues.

Grace’s heels clicked in the distance, and Allison raced after her. “Mom, Mom,” she said, skidding to a stop. “Did Five say anything at all about where he went?”

“No, I’m afraid he didn’t,” Grace said. “Though last night he did steal your father’s gun.”

Allison groaned through her clenched teeth. “Can you show me the room where the gun was?”

“Allison,” Grace scolded. “You know that is strictly off limits…”

“Five might be in danger, Mom,” Allison said. “I know you’re programmed to protect us, so just forget Dad and show me the room so we can find Five before anything happens to him. _Please.”_

Grace stared at her blankly for a few long, long moments, then smiled. “Well,” she said. “Since it’s an emergency, I suppose…” She trailed off, face frozen in that blank smile, then turned on her heel and strode down the hallway.

Allison followed her, watching as Grace found a grate behind one of the status by the stairs, lifting it away and pressing the button hidden behind it. “There you go, Allison. The door is upstairs, to your left.”

“Thank you, Mom,” Allison said.

The doorbell rang.

“Oh,” Grace said. “I’ll get that.”

“No!” Allison blurted. There was no telling who it could be. “Just… stay here, Mom, okay?”

“Alright,” Grace said, watching Allison go as she raced down the stairs.

“What’s happening?” Allison asked.

“Delivery,” Diego said, elbowing Klaus away so he could open the envelope.

“We have a PO box,” Allison pointed out.

“No, it’s a special courier service,” Vanya said, keeping close to Diego so she could see.

“Well, do they know who sent it?” Allison demanded.

“No, the guy said it just appeared in their pile for the day,” Ben said. “With a note saying it was urgent.”

“Careful opening it,” Luther murmured. “It could be anything.”

Diego nodded, opening the envelope away from himself with one of his knives, then carefully easing the contents out. “The hell?”

“What is it?” Ben asked.

Klaus leaped forward to catch a few Polaroids that slid out of the pages Diego was holding. “Oh, fuck,” he whispered, handing them to Allison.

It took a second to realize what the pictures were. Allison saw red, her hands shaking as she looked at them, Cha-Cha in her mask and Harold without, holding an unconscious Five between them. First Vanya, now this. Allison was going to kill Harold herself if she got anywhere near him.

“Oh, fuck,” Ben muttered. “I know what these are.” He took the pages from Diego. “They’re blueprints.”

“For what?” Luther asked, but it dawned on him even as he asked, the horror spreading over his face.

“The last room,” Vanya breathed. “He didn’t build it, but he did plan it.”

“More of a chair, actually,” Ben corrected.

Allison leaned over his shoulder to read Reginald’s notes. _Constriction of movement is a key component_ , it said, _Forceful activation of powers through electric stimuli should not hinder readings._ “Jesus,” Klaus murmured. “We weren’t even fucking human to him, were we?”

“So they have Five and they can keep him, too,” Allison said. Seeing her father’s neat handwriting calmly detailing how to trap and torture Five for scientific experiments was too much to deal with now, and it conjured up images of Five strapped down and scared that she didn’t have time for. She’d have a breakdown about it later, after Five was home safe. “Why? Did they make demands?”

“No,” Vanya whispered, barely holding back tears as she looked at the pictures, then flipped them over. “But they left a number.”

**

Ben shifted nervously. The phone was on speakerphone, and each ring seemed to echo through the house. What if they’d already killed Five and were doing this just to taunt them? Ben glanced at Klaus. He’d see Five, if he was dead, right? Klaus was chewing at his thumbnail, but at Ben’s look, he shook his head.

“Not yet,” he whispered.

Finally, there was a click, and the ringing stopped. “ _Took you a while,”_ came an unfamiliar voice. Vanya, however, took a sharp breath through her teeth, and Allison’s face grew even darker. “ _I assume you’re trying to trace this call, but don’t bother. The Commission makes sure that’s impossible.”_

Eudora grimaced, sitting back in defeat.

“Let us talk to Five,” Luther said. “We want to know he’s okay, or we’re done talking.” Diego smacked his thigh, and Luther gave him a helpless look.

 _“Well, I wouldn’t say okay, but he’s alive for now,”_ Harold said. _“Here, Five, why don’t you tell them yourself?”_

There was only silence. Ben could practically see the glare Five had to be leveling at Harold right now.

 _“You’re so rude, they’re worried about you,”_ Harold’s voice said from the distance. There was shuffling, then a noise that was obviously Five and obviously pained. Ben flinched in sympathy, and Klaus’s hands flew up to his ears like he hadn’t even realized he was doing it.

 _“Don’t do anything he says, it’s a—“_ Five blurted, before he was muffled, as though by a gag. Ben could hear a snarl through whatever it was, but it was clear Harold was pulling the phone away from him as he did it. Ben swallowed in worry. Five didn’t sound good. He sounded breathy, exhausted and – to a well trained ear – scared.

 _“There you go, all in one piece, for now, and still his surly, conniving self,”_ Harold said.

“You hurt him, I’ll gut you,” Allison said.

 _“Little late for that,”_ Harold said. _“But don’t worry. I’ll give him back to you, for a price.”_

“What price?” Luther asked.

_“What do you think? Your Dad’s weapons.”_

“We don’t know where they are, even if we would _ever_ give them to you,” Diego said. Luther returned the incredulous look from before, earning an ironically similar helpless look from Diego.

Reginald had not trained them well in the art of hostage negotiations, Ben realized.

 _“I’d start by asking your lovely mother where to find Pogo,”_ Harold drawled. _“Once you have them, you can call me again, and I’ll give you back your brother, alive and…”_ he laughed to himself, “ _well, not unharmed, but alive.”_

“Don’t you dare hurt him,” Allison snarled. “Or I will have you rip your own goddamn tongue out.”

 _“Look how much they love you, Five, isn’t it just adorable?”_ The way he said adorable was like a curse. _“Get me those missiles in 24 hours or Cha-Cha and I will have a lot of fun cutting some little fingers off.”_

The phone clicked as he hung up, leaving a dial tone to echo through the halls. Luther punched the wall in frustration, and Vanya curled up a little tighter.

“Fuck,” Diego said. “What now? We can’t give him those weapons, we know he’ll end the world with them.”

“We still have to get in touch with Pogo, figure out what they are and how they ended up causing whatever apocalypse Five was in, right? If we don’t know anything there’s nothing we can bargain with,” Allison said. “While we do that, we can think of a way to save Five.”

“He’s going to have to make the trade somehow, right?” Luther said. “Maybe when we meet up, if we’re fast enough, we can get Five out of there and take off with the missiles before he gets them.”

Ben’s head snapped up, the realization dawning on him. “No,” he said. “Under no circumstances can we make that our only plan.”

Everyone looked at him. “Why not?” Diego asked.

Ben rubbed his hands over his face. He’d assumed that Five was trying to say _It’s a trap_ , but now he realized he was saying something different. Now that he thought about it, it did sound like Five had been cut off trying to form an _l_ sound. “Because that’s exactly what timeline-two-us did.” He looked at all of them. “We’re in a time loop.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you think this is enough to teach Five that he makes dumb decisions or
> 
> Next time: 6 disasters try to figure out a situation their more successful, functional alternate selves already wildly failed at. There's a lot of yelling, obviously.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder to follow me on Twitter where I let people help me make bad decisions about when to post. Seriously every time I put it to Twitter vote y'all are just like "Yeah post like 2.4 seconds after you just posted, it's fine." 
> 
> That being said I do have a good reason, because tomorrow is the anniversary of some really shitty things that happened last year and tomorrow I'll be busy being sad. (Until Saturday, anyway. I like to plan my wallowing.)

Five had never been so relieved to be incapable of jumping. The shock was more painful like this, but it hardly measured up to the repeated aborted jumps. He swallowed down nausea and the stale taste of blood. He was dripping sweat, lungs burning with exertion, and he had to grip the arms of the chair to try to minimize the visible quivering of his muscles.

“You know, I was so happy when I found out you had a limit,” Harold said, pulling up a chair to sit in front of Five.

The worst torture, of course, was having Harold constantly sidling in and out of the room to talk at Five. His slimy face was more exhausting than any amount of jumps could be.

“That you just... become ordinary,” Harold continued.

_Only a math genius, an experienced assassin and seasoned survivor in the wilderness,_ Five thought. _Nothing ordinary about me, asshole._ Still, he wasn’t going to dignify Harold with answers. For one, he didn’t need Harold seeing how out of breath he was, and two, if he stayed quiet and refused to show weakness, eventually Harold would have to get tired of talking into the silence.

“You know, after you went missing, your siblings, they… they made it so _clear_ that you’d left a hole in their lives. When they lined up for public photos, they always left a space between Four and Six, just so no one would ever forget. And to me… that felt like an invitation. A _chance._ Because if I’d had your life, I would have never left.”

Five swallowed. It was a testament to how damn tired he was, but that stung more than he wanted to admit. _I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to stay away either. I tried to get back, I tried so fucking hard, asshole, you have no idea. You could_ never _care about them like I do._

“I tried to tell them,” Harold said. “I was born on the same day as you. I had as much of a right to be with them as you did. I had a right to have a real family.”

Five snorted at that. Harold made it sound like they were a perfect family, rather than a bunch of dysfunctional assholes just trying to manage despite their abusive father. Like they hadn’t all come close to killing each other on a weekly basis. Harold and his temper would have never lasted.

“Anyway, your dad never let me get close. He made it very clear that I wasn’t getting anywhere without a power,” Harold continued. “That I was _nothing.”_ He bit his lip with barely contained rage. “But then I realized… why do I have to be _born_ with a power? Why do I have to blindly accept the hand I was dealt? If I wanted things, I had to get them done _myself_.”

He laughed in a way that made him feel painfully human. Five wanted to spit in his face just out of principle. “So I killed my old man so he’d never lay his damn hands on me again. The cops came, of course. Never came to help me, but when I put a stop to it? Then they came for me. Just goes to show ya, huh?”

Reginald had never beaten them, outside of the occasional slap to shut them – mostly Five – up, but he’d been creative in his abuse. He’d made them do grueling tasks, had said the things he knew would get under their skin and hurt for days. When he’d realized Five could jump out of any task he was given, he’d started leveraging the wellbeing of his siblings against him, quietly reminding him that if Five wasn’t going to participate in his training, the natural recipients of Reginald’s freed up time would be Klaus and Ben – the two of his siblings terrified by their own powers.

He knew he should probably feel sympathy for Harold. Klaus certainly would. Ben might, too. Vanya had practically leapt into his arms at how much they had in common. But Five just wanted to snarl and bite at him in a blind rage. _You think we had it any better? Just because we had each other? You’re a fucking child._

Five’s mind stuck in the memories of days trapped in boxes, restraints, sometimes his own room - exhausted, hungry, trying to unlock the door with numb fingers so he could ask Grace for any kind of relief from the aching of his worn out muscles. He shook his head to clear it. Those memories hadn’t haunted him for years – as though anything Reginald was capable of could hold a candle to the silence of the apocalypse – but this exhaustion was getting to him.

Being scared for his siblings was getting to him.

“But jail gave me a lot of free time,” Harold continued. “Free time to read about time travel. I figured if I could get better at it than you…” He shrugged, like even he knew it was a ridiculous fantasy. “Then the book dropped. They talked about you all the time. Every other sentence was _Number Five this, Number Five that_ … like you hadn’t abandoned them.”

_I didn’t want to. I told them I didn’t want to,_ Five thought. He was getting too tired. His thoughts sounded desperate, and he hated it. He rolled his head to look at Cha-Cha, quietly cleaning her gun. “Don’t you get tired of listening to him?” he asked.

Cha-Cha shrugged, giving Five an unimpressed look. “He gets shit done.”

Harold snorted. “Come on, Five, don’t ignore me. This is where it starts getting interesting. I started researching you. How you’d done it. Picked through their stories until I found everything you were studying. Then your brother published his book for you, and I used that too. And I guess I got pretty close to a breakthrough, because that’s when the Commission jumped in.” He snorted. “Apparently they don’t like people who invent time machines.”

Five rolled his eyes. Now he not only had to hear Harold’s life story, he also had to hear about the Commission, the next item on the list of things Five didn’t give a damn about unless they were in his way.

“But they were very interested to hear about _you._ A natural time traveler. They were supposed to kill me, but the Handler decided to take a chance on me instead. Looked up when you were, and realized you were in the apocalypse where you didn’t belong. That part of the timeline was a mess, anyway, though they weren’t sure why. I told them they’d never get the world to end if you seven were in the picture.”

Five grimaced. Of course the Handler had been entertained by this situation. Five wanted to get his hands around her neck and watch the smarmy look on her face finally drop.

“It took some haggling, I’ll admit,” Harold said, sitting back. “But they agreed to let me go forward and take a look at you. And when I did, boy was I disappointed. You were arrogant, closed off… you wanted to go back and save the world, sure, but it was all for your ego. Of course you were the only one who could save everyone.”

_No,_ Five thought. It _had_ been about his family. It had always been about his family, even when he’d tried to tell himself otherwise. He swallowed down the urge to say so. Harold would just use it to say something that hurt even more. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. He couldn’t give Harold a single inch to work with.

“Do they even know you missed them?” Harold said. “Do they know you care about them at all? Have you ever told them that?”

Five blinked hard at that, trying to will away the sudden spasm in his throat. Of course they knew. None of them ever said as much, but they all _knew_. Five had left them a letter.

A letter that his version of his siblings would never see.

“Of course not. You know, I would have been so much better at your life than you,” Harold said. “But your family is only for the people who were born lucky, isn’t it?”

“Just shut up,” Five snapped, finally. “Have the decency to torture me the old fashioned way, if you’re just here to goad.”

“Well, okay,” Harold said, in a sickening parody of good natured. He pushed the button, and Five winced at the charge trying to force his body to do what it no longer had the energy for, swallowing down the noise that threatened to leap up his throat. “Hey, Cha-Cha, you must be bored, you up for some waterboarding? Five wants to be tortured the old fashioned way.”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Cha-Cha said, putting away her gun and getting a bucket that had been suspiciously on hand.

_Well,_ Five thought, _at least it was significantly better than hearing Harold talk._

**

“Pogo isn’t  going to show up,” Vanya determined.

“He has to,” Diego said. “He already did.”

“I don’t know how we got a hold of those missiles last time, but Pogo’s not going to show up,” Vanya said. “He’s always cared more about what Dad asked him to do than us, he’s made that abundantly clear.”

Someone cleared their throat in the doorway.

Pogo looked a great deal older than he had when Vanya had last seen him. She felt the same sort of rage looking at him as she had when she’d killed him, but her powers only simmered beneath the surface this time, her heart pounding in her ears. Everything in the room rattled until Allison quietly took her hand.

“See?” Diego said, pointing at Pogo.

“I admit, I did follow your father’s orders even when they conflicted with my own feelings on the matter,” Pogo said. “But as complicated as he was, he did always have your best interests at heart.”

“Bull _shit_ he did!” Luther snapped. “You’re really going to try to tell us that after everything? After what he did to Vanya, the rooms downstairs, trying to reprogram Mom so she didn’t love us? Dad had _his_ best interests in mind, and he knew he needed us as weapons to get them done.”

Vanya couldn’t help but smile at that. She could practically feel her lingering fury at Luther ebbing away as he talked, and moved a little closer to him. “Don’t lie to us, Pogo,” she said. “We’re not kids anymore.”

He sighed. “Very well. But you must believe that I did care for you children.”

“Don’t tell us what we have to do,” Klaus said, though Vanya got the feeling it was more so he could say something instead of genuine indignation. Still, she enjoyed it.

“Okay, listen, I know we have a lot of hurt feelings to deal with,” Allison said, sitting up, squeezing Vanya’s hand as she did, “but Five is in danger and we don’t have time to waste. Pogo, what are these weapons Harold wants?”

Pogo made his way to the couch and sat down, letting out a weary breath. “Sir Reginald assumed your odd behavior on the night of Master Five’s disappearance was due to a biological toxin that caused erratic behavior. He had his suspicions, I believe, of who might be responsible for such a thing.”

“Who?” Luther asked.

“That was not something he shared with me,” Pogo said. “But he seemed to think that, given that you were susceptible to such an attack, he needed a way to fight fire with fire. He developed his own biological weapons, but he discontinued the project after the appropriate containment to make them effective without causing mass casualties proved practically impossible.”

“He developed a missile that would make people go… crazy?” Allison asked.

Pogo nodded. “More than just crazy. It transformed them into something else. It was a version of a serum he’d been developing to treat severe injuries, and as such it had some… preexisting side effects.”

Everyone tried not to look at Luther, who crossed his arms, jaw working angrily.

“It was modified to lower problem-solving capabilities and inhibitions, to slow down anyone it was used on, but when Sir Reginald abandoned the project, the serum was still in an experimental phase. It also causes aggression, acute physical changes and extreme hunger.”

“Zombies,” Klaus whispered. He squinted.“Or… not-dead monster… zombie monkeys? Well, okay, I’ll admit, that’s weirder than I was expecting.” He perked up in a slightly manic way. “Zom- _beasts_.”

“What do you want to bet that a pun like that is exactly why calling them zombies pissed Five of?” Ben whispered.

“Oh, no bet,” Klaus replied.

“Will you two _focus?”_ Luther snapped. He looked back at Pogo. “If this thing was released into the air with no containment, how where there survivors? Why wasn’t Five affected?”

“It was designed so the seven of you and any others like you would have full immunity to its effects,” Pogo continued. “As such, roughly a third of the human population would have the same immunity due to similar genetic markers.”

“So if it was released to the world, two thirds of people would be turned into starving rage monsters?” Luther asked. He looked at the others. “Well, that would explain things.”

Vanya couldn’t help but imagine Five jumping into such a world as a child. Had he found people before or after one of those things had gone at him? Had someone explained to him what was going on, or had he started searching the wasteland around him after he’d had to fight his way away from monsters he hadn’t been expecting or prepared for? Her heart squeezed at the thought of Five, 13 in every sense, frantically trying to defeat a rabid monster before it killed him, wondering where his family was, wishing they would show up and help him.

“You understand the control panel for these missiles cannot fall into the wrong hands,” Pogo said.

“You still brought it with you,” Ben said, nodding at the silver case Pogo had beside him.

Pogo sighed. “Yes, I did. Grace told me the situation was dire, and I… I wanted to be certain that even if we hand over a decoy, there would be no discrepancy that would alert the enemy and put Master Five in more danger than he already is.”

“Hey, first time around, we must have taken the actual thing to Harold, right? That’s how he got it?” Klaus said. “If we take a decoy, maybe that’ll change things up a bit?”

“No,” Ben said, chewing at the inside of his cheek as he mulled it over. “At least, we don’t know that we didn’t do that the first time. Five said he’d fixed Mom, right? And he didn’t find any evidence that we were trying to stop the apocalypse, even though we know now that it ended after he came back.”

“We suspect that,” Diego said. “We don’t know for sure.”

“No, but listen,” Ben said. “If we all die trying to save Five in a trade-off, Harold could come back, destroy Mom, hide any evidence and then take the case after the fact, right?”

“Diego’s right, there’s no telling if that’s what happened,” Luther said. He groaned. “Or any way of telling that that’s not what happened, I guess, but…”

“Okay, okay,” Klaus blurted. “Look, we just have to figure out what our original selves… or uh… not original… wait…”

Pogo raised an eyebrow. “Original selves?”

“Yes, it’s complicated!” Klaus shouted. “Shut up! Okay, timeline-two-us. We have to figure out what they’d do, and then _not_ do that, right?”

“How are we supposed to know what the hell they’d do?” Diego said.

“Well, let’s see,” Klaus said. “They’re better at teamwork, what with being all tightly woven and chummy and all… they’re probably better at their powers since they appear to be less worried about using them and have less things to make them wary of them,” he gestured at Allison, “and they seem overall better adjusted people. So I suppose the question is, what’s the most dysfunctional thing we could do in this situation, because we should do that.”

“So just to be clear, your suggestion is… we should intentionally be stupid?” Luther asked.

“Yes, sadly, that appears to be what just came out of my mouth from my brain,” Klaus said, eyes drifting to look at nothing. “Look, I’m just trying to think of _something_.”

“I see,” Pogo murmured. “That day was not the result of a biological agent. It was, in fact, time travel.”

“Yes, obviously,” Luther snapped. “We came back from the end of the world to try again and somehow caused a different end of the world.”

“Hey now,” Diego said. “Let’s be fair. Dad pretty much caused the end of the world both times.”

Klaus pointed at Diego cheerfully, nodding fervently.

 “Does it matter whose fault it is?” Vanya asked, as Ben stood up to pace. It did sort of matter, but trashing their father would sadly have to wait. “We need to get Five back. He came back to save us, we can’t just let him die.”

“You know, I hate to say it,” Klaus said, wincing preemptively. “But… I feel like we should also consider the fact that Five would happily die if it kept us and the world alive.”

The room went silent, everyone staring at Klaus before they all burst out into incomprehensible yelling.

 “I’m not saying we _should_ walk away and let him die horribly, I’m just saying we need to approach this with the knowledge that that’s what Five would _want_ us to do,” Klaus said, shrinking away from the collective ire.

“We are _not_ leaving Five to die!” Luther shouted.

“I wasn’t suggesting that!” Klaus said. “I just… _if_ we want to _save_ him, we need to be really clear about the fact that making him watch us die is a fate worse than death for him, that’s all.” At their continued disbelief, he added, “I’m just… I’m trying to think of what’s actually going to be the best for Five, since he _is_ the reason we’re debating giving a lunatic a bunch of zombie monkey bombs.”

“Master Klaus does have a point,” Pogo offered.

“You shut up!” Diego shouted. “You don’t get a vote!”

“Calm _down_ man,” Klaus muttered. “Jeez.”

“I’m not letting anyone in this family die,” Diego said, before realizing something. “Hang on, timeline-two-me would have definitely brought Eudora and some cops, right? As back up? So if we _don’t—_ ”

“So _your_ suggestion is to bring less backup, in case that helps?” Klaus said, turning to look at Diego.

“You’re the one who said we should be stupid!”

“Look, again, I’m just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks!” Klaus cried. “I’m not actually putting forth any plans, I’m just trying to make observations in case any of them helps!”

“They help,” Allison said. Everyone paused. She’d been extremely quiet the whole time, and now she was chewing at her lip and staring at the floor, deep in thought.

“What do you mean?” Diego asked. “You have a plan?”

Allison looked up at them. “Yes, and it’s going to work,” she said. Her voice was confident, but her face told a different story.

“How do you know that?” Vanya asked.

“Because it’s reckless, stupid and _extremely_ selfish,” Allison said, closing her eyes for a moment. “And _definitely_ not something timeline-two-us would have thought of doing.” She hesitated and added, regretfully, “To Five.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will reply only with vague, frustrating non-answers, but PLEASE tell me your guesses as to Allison's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Plan because I am certain all your guesses will be wildly entertaining and I foresee tomorrow being very dismal without something to giggle over. Evilly, of course.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you actually guessed it! And others really added pain I didn't even think of, and now I'm kind of sad I didn't.
> 
> Anyway fair warning, this chapter gets kinda gruesome, so if you're bothered by gore/violence, read cautiously. I don't think it goes past anything in the show, though.

Five woke to the restraints clicking open. This was the moment to try to get a hit in, he thought sluggishly, but he hadn’t noticed that he’d fallen asleep – or passed out, it didn’t really matter – and he was still groggy. Too groggy to react before Harold and Cha-Cha fastened his wrists and ankles with zip-ties.

His brain slowly reconnecting with his body, he tried to kick at Cha-Cha even with the ties around his legs, but she slammed his legs back down painfully. “Make this harder than it has to be and I’ll break your damn knee caps. With pleasure.” She wrapped tape over the ties. They weren’t going to give him the chance to worm his way out of the restraints.

Five still struggled against them as Harold lifted him. He knew it was useless, but he tried to jump, just an inch to the side, just enough to get out of Harold’s arm around his waist, dragging him along. It didn’t work, and it only made him dizzier.

His stomach flipped as the situation registered fully. If he was being moved, it meant…

_No, no, no_. Not even they were this stupid. There was no _way_ they were this stupid.

And yet, as Harold dragged him out of the dark room and into a slightly less dark hallway, there was Luther, holding a briefcase, face stony and worried.

“Luther,” Five hissed. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What we have to,” Luther said, trying to catch his eyes. “Don’t worry. No matter how bad it looks, I _promise_ we’re going to get you out of here, got it? I _promise.”_

_I don’t want you to_ , Five wanted to say. _You’re going to try to fight him, and you’re going to die._ “You idiot, it’s a l—” he started, but Harold’s hand clamped over his mouth. Five tried to kick him away, but his whole body was shaking with exhaustion, and Harold was taller and stronger than him. And seeing Five struggle and then slump over in Harold’s arms was only going to make his family more determined to stay and save him.

He had to think of something that would make them _leave._ Dammit, why hadn’t he thought to say something hurtful before Harold had covered his mouth?

Luther held up the briefcase, opening it to show a series of buttons. “It’s the real deal. Now let him go,” he said, hand still on the handle. “Let him go and I’ll let go too.”

“The briefcase first,” Harold said, pulling Five closer and putting his gun under Five’s chin.

If Five pushed him into firing, would the others survive? Of course not. They’d probably attack Harold even more recklessly, and he would take them out. He tried to shake his head in Harold’s steel grip over his face, making what noise he could to tell Luther to _go_. To run away and let Five die instead.

Luther shook his head. “Sorry, Five, but we’re not leaving you,” he whispered. He turned back to Harold. “Harold. Please. I don’t know what we did to make you hate us, but if you really use this briefcase, people are going to die. Not just us. Billions of innocent people.”

“This world has never been kind to me,” Harold snapped. “No one has ever cared about me, why should I care about them?’

“They’re just people,” Luther pleaded. “Most of them have never even met you. Children. Mothers. _Everyone.”_

Harold shrugged. “So? If it’s their time, it’s their time. They die, and I finally get the life I wanted in the Commission. A place to belong.”

“Harold,” Luther tried again.

“Give me the case, Luther,” Harold hissed. His gun dug into Five’s jaw painfully. “Or I blow his head off.”

“You kill him and you’re dead,” Luther snapped.

“Right, that would be pretty short sighted of me,” Harold sighed. He lowered his gun, firing it into Five’s arm.

The pain of being shot at point blank range, even if it was just his arm, was too sudden and too intense after all the exhaustion of the past few days. Five’s vision went black for a moment. He felt himself move as Harold shifted, and then the gun went off again. He flinched in anticipation of another excruciating shot, but as the ringing in his ears died down and no new pain arose, he realized what had really happened.

“No,” he whispered, at the same time Luther shouted, “Vanya!”

Vanya herself was sprawled on the floor, bleeding from a bullet wound through the stomach. Blood was bubbling up from her mouth. Five couldn’t look away, and obviously, neither could Luther, because Cha-Cha easily moved in front of him, cutting him off as he rushed towards Vanya.

It took four shots, but Luther finally dropped. Dropped exactly where Five had seen him in the foreign flashback. Five stared at him, too frozen to do anything at all.

“No!” Allison screamed, rushing out from her own hiding place while Diego tried to tug her back. Cha-Cha put the gun away and instead tossed a grenade at their heels. Five’s head snapped up to follow it, panic flooding his senses.

“Shit,” Diego managed, trying to drag Allison down, but it was too late. The grenade went off.

Five squeezed his eyes shut, but he still heard the telltale sounds of bodies hitting walls, bones crunching. He didn’t dare look. He’d seen it already. Harold finally dropped him, and he hit the floor with no resistance, his brain fighting against catching up to reality. “Did you get the last two?” Harold asked the backup agents, but Five couldn’t stand to follow what they were doing or saying.

He tried to crawl towards Vanya. He could still hear her wheezing. She was still alive… Maybe he could save her. He was so dizzy he could barely push himself to his hands and knees, but it was only a few feet to get to her, to try to stem the bleeding with his arms somehow.

Cha-Cha reloaded her gun, striding to Vanya’s side and firing twice. The wheezing stopped. Five’s breath stopped with her.

 Maybe Ben and Klaus had pulled something off, Five tried to think. He couldn’t allow himself to think they were all dead. He couldn’t. He had to get up, he had to check, to see if he could save anyone else. Maybe there was still a chance for a few of them, maybe he wasn’t entirely alone…

“Yeah,” said one of the masked agents. “They tried to distract us, just like you said.”

“No,” Five whimpered, arms giving out as he turned to look. Ben, face bloody, tentacles stretched down the hall for Five to trip over. Klaus was face down, making it hard to tell what had happened to him, but his back was bloody and he wasn’t moving.

Harold let out a laugh like he couldn’t believe his luck, moving to stand over the bodies. “Keep your gun on Five,” he told Cha-Cha. “He makes one wrong move, shoot him.”

She nodded. “Already on it.”

One of them had to be alive, Five thought. They had to, or the eye wouldn’t be where Five could have found it. Maybe Diego or Allison - they hadn’t been shot, maybe....

_Klaus._

He looked at Klaus in horror. Klaus wasn’t where Five had found him. Klaus was going to…

Harold turned his back to them, and in a moment, Klaus was on top of him, legs around Harold’s waist and hands clawing at his face.

“No!” Five screamed, trying to dive to help him, but even if he’d been unbound, he couldn’t move his legs. He was losing too much blood, he couldn’t push himself through the pain. Trying to drag himself up to get Klaus’ attention only brought him face to face with Luther and the growing puddle around him. “Klaus, just _run!”_

He watched as Klaus tried to gain purchase by grabbing Harold’s face. His fingers sank into the already frayed flesh around the eye, and it popped. Five’s mind felt like static. He’d seen ghosts of his siblings in his nightmares, blaming, lashing out at him for leaving, but now those ghosts were _right_.

Cha-Cha fired once, and Klaus thudded to the ground, the eye clutched in his hand.

Five would have screamed if he could find the breath for it, but he couldn’t. He felt tears rising to his eyes. He smelled ash, but this was so much worse. He’d been here, he’d been _with_ them and it hadn’t mattered. It had made things _worse_. “No,” he whispered. “No, no, no…”

Harold staggered, hissing as he gripped the hole his eye had left. He turned to empty his gun into Klaus, then dropped his gun to deal with his eye instead. “What do you say?” he asked Cha-Cha, nodding at Five. “Do we throw him into the concrete dead or alive?”

“Doesn’t make much difference to me,” Cha-Cha said, lowering her own gun as she looked him over.

Five already felt like he couldn’t breathe. There was nowhere he could look without seeing blood. He knew if he closed his eyes he would see the same thing. _Why didn’t you just let_ me _die?_ he thought at Luther. _Didn’t you know I didn’t want to live in a world without all of you anymore? Didn’t I fucking_ tell _you that?_

There was a swish and a gasp that Five couldn’t comprehend until he saw Harold drop, blood gushing from the knife in his throat.

“What—“ Cha-Cha blurted, before several shots sounded, sending her crashing into the wall, leaving a bloody trail as she slid down.

Five blinked. There were suddenly no more bodies, only Harold’s and Cha-Cha’s. None of the soldiers around them were there anymore. His mind skipped like a record, trying to piece it all together. He tried to push himself up, get his hands down to the ties around his ankles so he could stand, but he fell back to the ground. Nothing made sense anymore.

“Come on, buddy, up and at ‘em,” Diego said, appearing by his side, nowhere near where he’d been, very much alive. He cut away the ties and tape around Five’s hands and ankles. Behind him, Detective Patch still had her gun leveled at Cha-Cha.

Five stared at him numbly. Diego was supposed to be dead. Five had seen him die.

“Hey. Five,” Diego said, patting his cheek vigorously. “C’mon, we gotta get out of here, we don’t know who else the Commission might send.”

His voice felt like it was coming from a million miles away. He was swimming in and out of focus. Five tried to look him in the eyes. He wanted to say something, possibly ask how Diego was here, or peg him to determine if Five had finally lost his goddamn mind, but the words didn’t come out.

“Shit. Guys, help, he’s going into shock!” he heard, before everything went strangely blank.

*Seventeen hours earlier*

“What do you mean, we wouldn’t do it _to Five?”_ Klaus asked. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not good, but it’ll work,” Allison said, looking queasy. She looked at their expectant faces. “When I was a kid, Dad and I practiced using my powers over phones or on crowds. Both of them weaken the strength of the compulsion.”

“Okay,” Luther said slowly. “And?”

“My power _sort_ of follows the rules of hypnosis, but regular hypnosis can’t make you do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do, like… committing murder for the first time or hurting people you care about. My rumors can, if they’re applied one-on-one, in person.”

Klaus frowned. “How does that help us?”

 “It doesn’t,” Allison said. “It means it’s essentially impossible for me to, say, hijack loudspeakers in whatever building Harold’s using and rumor him and anyone he’s working with to kill themselves.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “ _But_ I could probably rumor him and everyone he’s working with into doing something he’d expect.”

“I.e. murdering all of us,” Diego pointed out.

“Yes,” Allison said. “Exactly.”

They all frowned at her in confusion.

“I can make people see things,” Allison said, taking a heavy breath. “I’ve tried it before. If I know roughly what’s supposed to happen, I can make Harold and everyone else in the building who hears me _think_ they’ve seen us, gone through with whatever their plan is, and killed us. Then, we could take them out after they let their guard down.”

“Even though we wouldn’t actually be there,” Vanya murmured. “Or we’d be elsewhere, ready to take  them out.”

Allison nodded. “But the key word there is _everyone_ ,” she said. “I have no way of excluding Five.”

A morbid silence fell over the room.

“So he’d see us die,” Klaus said, finally.

She nodded.

“He’d have to watch,” Klaus pressed. “And he’d think it was real.”

She nodded again. “Once I stopped talking, the illusion would vanish and he’d be able to see we’re all alive, but… yes. Until then, he’d see us die.”

They all stared at the floor in somber horror.

“We can’t… we can’t do that to him,” Vanya whispered.

“I don’t want to either,” Allison choked out. “Seriously, if anyone has a better plan, please tell me.”

Luther rubbed his hand over his face. “We have to vote on it. It’s the only thing that’s fair.”

Allison nodded.

No one moved to speak first.

“Shit,” Diego said, finally. “ _Shit.”_ He leaned onto the back of the couch, hanging his head. “I’m in. It’s going to be terrible for him, but it’ll keep him alive and… I mean, it’s not like we’ll _actually_ be dead.”

Ben nodded. “I agree. If we stay alive and avert the apocalypse, at least we have the chance to fix the damage later.” He looked at Klaus.

Klaus pressed his hands to the back of his neck, trying to think. There was no good answer here. There was just… He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay. Yes, I’m in.” Five was a pragmatist. If he’d been here to hear this, he would have… Well, he probably would have insisted they leave him and destroy the weapons, but in lieu of that he would have voted for it, and therefore it was likely that eventually he’d probably forgive them.

Diego looked at Luther. “What about you, Number One?”

Luther shook his head. “I… no. I can’t support this. I saw his face when he told me we all died the first time and I just… I can’t.”

Vanya bit her lip. “Yeah, I… I’m with Luther, you guys, I don’t…” She let out a quivering breath. “I know it’s going to work, but… God.”

They all looked at Allison.

“Up to you,” Ben said. Klaus wanted to laugh and cry at once. If she voted against, who would break the tie? Would they flip a coin about how much pain they could cause their brother to save his life?

Allison bit her lip, then slowly nodded. “We can’t let him die,” she said. “Ben’s right, if we do this at least we have a chance to make up for it later, and it’s our best chance at taking care of Harold and Cha-Cha for good. I mean, even if we let him die, we can’t know they don’t have a plan to take us out here.”

Luther let out a distressed noise, turning to pace away.

“It has to be what Harold expects, though,” Allison said. “So we need to figure out Five’s notes on the ballistics, and fast.”

“Oh, good, let’s just try to translate the crazy scribbles while in extreme emotional distress, I’m sure that’ll work out great,” Klaus said, swallowing hard. God, he wanted to be high right now.

Pogo cleared his throat. “If I may,” he said, holding out his hand. “I spent a great deal of time cleaning up Master Five’s homework during and after his lessons. I believe I can give you something to work with.”

After a long pause, Allison reluctantly gave him the notebook.

“We’re all going to hell,” Klaus muttered.

Diego sighed. “Well, what else is new.”

**

“You going to be okay?” Ben asked.

Allison looked at him with a greenish tinge. “Sure, I’m just about to put my brother through hell on Earth,” she said, looking down at the notepad on which Pogo had detailed every turn she’d have to go through. “I mean, Jesus.”

“Still time to opt out,” Ben said. “Maybe Vanya can take down the whole building, right?”

Vanya chewed at her lip. “Even if I could, Five would go down with it,” she said. “And that probably wouldn’t end well in terms of my powers, either. Emotionally speaking.”

Allison shook her head. “No. Jenkins is expecting Vanya. This… this is the best we’ve got.”

Luther squeezed her shoulder, though his face didn’t offer a lot of comfort.

Diego jogged over to her with his walkie-talkie. “We’ve got their channel. Since they’re spaced out, it’s likely they’ll be listening already, just try to get their attention with something.” He handed it over. “Ben, Vanya, you guys stay with Allison, keep her safe. She’s the key to all this.” He looked at Luther. “You coming or staying, big guy?”

“I’m coming,” Luther said firmly. “We don’t know how badly Five is hurt. He might need to be carried out of there.”

Diego nodded. “Klaus is pretty sure he can take out most of their field agents with ghosts,” he said. “But Eudora and I are going to stay pretty close in case he hits his limit before they’re out of the picture.”

“I just want to remind you all how illegal this is,” Eudora said.

“I know, but it’s the end of the world,” Diego said, holding her shoulders for a moment as though to calm himself. “Or, well, hopefully not, but… You know.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, okay, I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You are, and it’s terrifying, but let’s go,” Diego said, clapping her on the shoulder. She sighed, but she followed him as they turned to go.

“I’ll give you a signal when it’s safe to enter the building,” Vanya said. “Just… get him out of there in one piece.”

Diego nodded. “We will.”

“Don’t make a lot of noise,” Allison said. “I don’t know how strong this illusion will be, and I don’t have to tell you what happens if they snap out of it.”

Luther nodded. “We’ll be careful. Just…” He sighed, putting his hand on her head for a moment, trying to communicate a lot of things that were impossible to put into words.

“Yeah,” she whispered.

He let go, joining Diego and Eudora.

Allison took a deep breath and pressed the button on the walkie-talkie. “Come in all units,” she said, voice shaking slightly.

Vanya crouched near the corner, waiting for Allison to get into it.

“ _We read you,_ ” said a voice over the walkie-talkie.

Allison took a deep breath. Ben plugged his ears, but he saw her mouth say, _“I heard a rumor_ that you forgot I was talking, but you saw everything I’m about to tell you.”

Vanya pushed at something with her power, then nodded at Ben and Allison to indicate that they were ready.

Allison lifted up the paper to read the words, looking at Ben with a pained look as she did. “The only person entering the building is Luther.”

Vanya looked back at Ben, clenching her teeth.

Ben agreed with the emotion in her eyes, but he took a breath and steeled himself.

“He has the case and he’s cooperating with Harold,” she continued, closing her eyes. “And he’s telling Five that no matter how bad it looks, I _promise_ we’re going to get you out of here, got it? I _promise.”_

Ben took a deep breath. They were going to stop the end of the world tonight, and that was that. What happened next was tomorrow’s question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of you guessed that they'd convince Harold and Five that they don't care about him and I'm haunted by that thought.
> 
> Next time: Five is not happy with his family. He's _really_ not happy with his family.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am seeing Endgame tomorrow and I think that the wait for that movie has finally broken me, so that's how my day is going, how are all of you?
> 
> Also, I impulse posted a little [oneshot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18563224) about timeline 2 Five last night, so enjoy!

“Fuck,” Luther said, skidding in front of Five, elbowing Diego aside to get a better look. Unsurprisingly, Five did not look at all well. The closest he’d seen Five to this was back in that van, before he’d composed himself, but this was worse. Five was pale and cold as snow, and his red-rimmed eyes stared into thin air like there was nothing behind them. “Five. Hey, Five, look at me.”

He put his hands on Five carefully.  His arm was a mess, blood dripping down his wrist and fingers. He showed no reaction to Luther touching him, but he was cold to the touch, blazer damp from sweat.

“Luther, we gotta go,” Diego said. “Just grab him, we’ll do what we can in the car.”

Luther hissed. “Sorry,” he told Five. He didn’t know if it was a good idea to move Five, but it was that or risk another batch of Commission agents bursting in on them. Klaus had dispatched most of the original crew, but there was no way he was going to have the energy to do that again, and Luther wasn’t going to be able to fight anyone efficiently with Five like this.

He shrugged off his coat, throwing it around Five and picking him up, careful not to jostle his mangled arm any more than necessary. His whole, small body was shaking like a leaf, and Luther tried to cradle him a little closer, trying to show him, somehow, that he was safe now.

Diego ran ahead. Eudora joined him, putting her gun away. “No one new yet,” she said, glancing at Luther and Five. “Is he still alive?”

“Verdict’s still out,” Diego muttered, standing guard while Luther ducked out of the door, holding Five close.

Outside, Allison was already in the parked car, and Ben was currently helping an extremely sick looking Klaus in beside her. “Are they okay?” Luther asked.

“I’m still alive, I think,” Klaus croaked, before throwing up. Blood was gushing from his nose. “Breaking news: dead people were not meant to be solid.”

“Yeah, just breathe,” Ben said, buckling him in. “Allison’s out cold, but she’s okay. Five?”

Klaus’ head snapped up to wait for the answer to Ben’s question, eyes landing on the small wisps of black hair that stuck out from behind Luther’s coat.

“Not great,” Diego said, wrenching the door open. “We gotta get him home. Pick a car, quick.”

“I’m staying with Klaus,” Ben said, getting into the front seat and waiting for Eudora to join him in the driver’s seat.

“Shit,” Vanya said, getting a better look at Five. “How bad is it?”

Luther eased the boy into the car. “He’s in shock,” he said. “Keep his legs up, make sure he’s warm, you know the drill.” He took the front seat as Eudora backed out of the alley. He gave Allison a quick glance as they went, but he reminded himself she was in good hands. Right now, his job was to make sure Five stayed alive.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

Vanya sat beside Five, lifting his feet into her lap. “Fuck, his arm,” she hissed. Luther looked back.

 “There’s a first aid kit under the seat,” Diego said, speeding up.

Vanya scrambled to get it, fumbling for a moment before she got bandages. “Sorry, Five,” she muttered, before pulling his arm closer so she could get the bandage around it tightly. She fastened it, then leaned over to brush his hair out of his face. He didn’t so much as blink at the touch. “We shouldn’t have done this to him.”

“He’s alive, isn’t he?” Diego said, though his voice shook. “T-That’s what matters.”

Vanya swallowed hard, taking Five’s bloody hand and gripping it tightly.

Luther looked at Five’s face, the way his lashes fluttered with his shaking, the tears gathered under them that didn’t fall. He was glad Five was alive, but he couldn’t help but wonder if Five would agree if or when he snapped out of this. “Just drive faster,” he muttered.

Diego glanced back at Five, then slammed on the gas.

**

Klaus stumbled out of the car. His ears were still ringing, and he felt like he’d just done three hundred jumping jacks. Ben reached for him, but he shook his head. “I can walk, you deal with Allison,” he croaked, staggering forward.

Allison had arguably done more than him, but keeping ghosts solid and coordinated enough to take out a bunch of rumored Commission agents quietly was not something Klaus was keen on doing ever again for any reason.

He staggered over to the other car to watch Luther easing Five out like he was made of glass. There was something so tender about how he held Five. Klaus really wanted to say something about it, but his brain wasn’t really keeping up. “How’s he doing?” he asked. He wanted to kick himself for not picking the car with Five so he could try to talk to him.

Then again, maybe all the blood on his face wouldn’t be the most confidence inspiring thing for Five right now.

“Bad,” Luther said, arm wrapped tightly around Five’s shoulders to hold him to his chest as he hurried up the steps.

Klaus tried to turn around, but ended up grabbing onto Vanya to stay upright.

“Come on,” she said gently, slinging her arm around his waist to help him up the stairs. “You should lay down.”

“No, no,” Klaus said, waving her away. “This is nothing after LSD. I want to make sure Five’s okay.”

Vanya sighed, but nodded, helping him up the stairs to the infirmary. Grace was getting blood from Luther – which made sense, really, since Luther had the most blood – and Five was on the table.

“Oh, buddy,” Klaus murmured, staggering closer so he could put his hand on Five’s head. “We really scared the shit out of you, didn’t we?” Five didn’t answer, unsurprisingly, so Klaus squatted down to lean closer and whisper, “You’re going to have a tough time forgiving us for this one, but sadly we’re no better at letting you go than you are at letting go of us.”

“I’m going to have to sedate him to take care of this arm,” Grace interjected.

Klaus nodded at her, then looked back at Five. “Hey, look at me, old man, will you? It’s Klaus, good ol’ still-alive-Klaus.” He wiped his nose, hoping the remaining blood wasn’t too alarming.

Five’s eyes finally did something that maybe could be called focusing on Klaus’ face. He was going to be out cold soon, but Klaus was loath to let him drift off still scared to death. “Hey,” he said, absently petting Five’s head. “Hi.”

Five let out a soft whimper that Klaus was pretty sure only he heard, making it a secret Klaus was going to take to his grave. “No,” he mumbled. “No, I’m sorry.”

“Hey, no no,” Klaus murmured, meeting Five’s eyes. He recognized the way it felt to see ghosts in those frantic blue eyes. “You did it. We’re alive, we’re all alive. It’s okay. You didn’t fail us. We’re the ones who should be sorry.”

Five’s face twisted with grief and confusion.

“I’m right here, living and breathing,” Klaus said, pressing Five’s hand to his throat to feel his pulse. “And I’ll be here when you wake up, I promise, okay?”

“But,” Five croaked, his voice too small.

“Do you think you can trust me on this?” Klaus asked. “I know that’s hard for you, I get it, but I promise everything is okay.”

Five’s lashes fluttered as he struggled to stay awake, but after a moment, he nodded.

“We’ll _all_ be here when you wake up. All six of us,” Klaus whispered one more time as Five’s eyes finally closed. He watched his face go slack, then stood up.

“Do you think he’ll ever forgive us?” Vanya asked, hugging herself.

“Yeah, of course,” Klaus muttered. “He loves us.” Standing up had not agreed with him, and now he felt a lot like the floor was supposed to be the ceiling. “Wow, I think I really overdid it.”

And that was the last thing he remembered before passing out.

**

It was still sort of surreal, doing things alone, Ben thought as he pushed coins into the slot of the newspaper box. Klaus was probably still asleep, and here Ben was, walking around, touching things and being seen by people. After the past few days, it probably shouldn’t have felt so novel, but it did. He took a paper and folded it so the date was still visible, then headed back.

Klaus greeted him, still looking dead tired. “Hey, there you are,” he said. “Five’s stirring, we’re all gonna go… sit in front of him and be… you know, not dead.”

“Not sure you’re going to convince him,” Ben said. “You look like death warmed over.”

“Ha, yeah, I have the hangover to end all hangovers,” Klaus said. “I don’t care how useful they are, I’m never manifesting this many ghosts again.”

“Hey, practice makes perfect,” Ben laughed.

“Fuuuuuck youuuuu,” Klaus replied, shoving him.

They made it to Five’s room. Allison looked even worse than Klaus. “Hi,” she said, though she was too hoarse for it to make much of a noise. Ben and Vanya had been the ones to sneak her into the building and then drag her out after she’d passed out, and it was more of a relief than Ben had thought it would be to see her back up after that.

The rest of them were hovering over Five. Diego looked casual, but he was anxiously spinning a knife in his hand as he leaned against the wall. Vanya had her knee up on her chair and was chewing her fingernails absently. Luther was pacing, occasionally glancing at Five or Allison.

“Good morning everyone,” Klaus said. “Another stressful family gathering. They’re really growing on me.”

Five made a noise. He’d been propped up on the pillows. His whole arm was in a cast and a sling, various bruises standing out against his pale skin. Ben could see cuts and chafing around his wrists, probably from having tried to free himself. That alone spoke to his desperation, and made Ben’s heart hurt.

“Mom says he’s still on a lot of painkillers for that arm, so he might be a little out of it,” Diego muttered. “Just take it slow, okay?”

Five’s eyes cracked open, and he looked at each of them with a blank look.

“Hey,” Luther said, squatting down to eye level. “Five. It’s good to see you.”

“I saw all of you die,” Five said, right off the bat. He wasn’t as hoarse as Allison, but his words were hard to make out.

“Yeah, I know,” Luther said. “That… that wasn’t real. It was a…” He hesitated, glancing at Allison before continuing, “… a rumor that we used so we could get you out of there and stop Harold.”

Allison touched his wrist gently to get his attention. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed.

Five stared at her, face unreadable. “You did this,” he said, slowly. Allison nodded, though Five was looking at all of them, not her.

“We’re all so sorry we put you through that,” Vanya said. “But we couldn’t let you die.”

Five said nothing.

 “I got you a present,” Ben offered, stepping forward to offer the paper to Five.

Five looked at him, taking the paper like his hand was on autopilot. He looked down slowly, staring at the paper.

“April 2nd,” Ben said. “We made it.”

Five’s eyes bore into the paper with a hollow look for several beats. Finally, he looked up. His face twisted around a broken, false laugh, eyes flickering as he searched for words. He wouldn’t find them, Ben knew. There was nothing good to say about any of this.

“Five,” Vanya murmured, reaching for him.

“Get out,” he said before she could touch him, voice low and toneless.

She froze, looking at Allison for help.

“I said _get out,_ ” Five snarled.

Vanya pulled her hand back, looking around at all of them. “Okay,” she said, standing up. “Whatever you need.”

Five was looking back at the paper instead of them. He didn’t react at all when Allison squeezed his knee, nor when they all shuffled out, carefully closing the door behind themselves.

“Well, he’s never going to forgive us,” Diego muttered.

“No, he’ll…” Klaus said, weakly, looking back at the door. “He just needs some time to process. It’s okay.”

“We put him through hell,” Luther muttered.

Klaus sighed. “Yeah, but…” He shrugged helplessly. “I think… He’s kind of… used to hell.” He looked at the silent door and sighed. “At least this hell had an end.”

**

To say the next few days were awkward would be an understatement. Harrowing, maybe. No one wanted to break the silence, nor did anyone want to leave, meaning they all just drifted around the house, waiting for something to happen.

Grace was the only one Five allowed into his room, but at least it appeared he was eating. Allison wanted more than anything to give him a hug, but so much as a peek into his room from behind Grace earned any of them a chilly glare.

Time crawled forward with every second the door stayed closed and silent. Allison called Claire a few times, putting her on speaker while Luther spoke for her, until she could finally rasp out a few words.

She wasn’t alone. She caught Klaus on the phone several times, and Diego called Eudora daily, if she didn’t come over with coffee in the first place. Vanya, after a while, called Helen, updating her on the situation, slowly and carefully easing into longer conversations with her.

For the most part, they didn’t spend their vigil together, just drifted around each other like ghosts, smiling awkwardly when they caught sight of one another, but they did have breakfasts together. That was somewhat nice, even if those meals were an echo of their meals as children, everyone silent, only sneaking looks at each other every so often.

On the third day of waiting for something to happen, whatever it was – maybe they were all waiting for Five to tell them to fuck off, or something – Five finally appeared in the doorway.

He looked strangely normal, in his blue pajamas, hair falling in his eyes but still combed. The bruises had faded somewhat, and the sling was the only striking feature that showed anything was off.

Allison held her breath, watching as Five entered the room, heading over to the stove to make coffee like nothing in the world was wrong. She looked at the others, not sure how to start the conversation. They looked just as stumped, and in the end, all six of them watched Five make a cup of coffee in silence.

He sat down, and Luther finally cleared his throat. “Five,” he said, looking at the rest of them as though begging them to start instead. No one did. “We… need to talk about what happened.”

“We really don’t,” Five said, his voice entirely normal, engrossed in his cup of coffee. “I know I was angry earlier, but I was also high as a kite, so I’d prefer we just forget about it.”

Luther took a deep breath and continued anyway. “I know we really scared you, and… that was wrong of us, we know. We didn’t want to hurt you. We just couldn’t think of a better option,” he said, glancing at Vanya as he said it. She gave him a tepid half smile before looking back to Five.

Five, on the other hand, took a long breath in through his nose, rolling the inside of his lip against his teeth with his tongue, and set his cup down with the utmost restraint.

“Fine,” he said, turning a piercing glare on Luther. “It was the singular most horrifying moment of my long and extremely awful life, and I would rather _die_ than go through it again,” he said. “But on the other hand, it also achieved the _only_ goal I’ve had in that life for the past _forty five to sixty YEARS_ , so…” He stopped and shrugged with a barely contained rage. “You win some, you lose some.”

A pin dropping would have sounded like a thunder clap in the silence as Five returned to his coffee, taking a long sip before looking at all of them. “Does that count as _talking_ about it, or do you all need more to assuage your guilt about doing what had to be done?”

“We just want you to be alright,” Vanya said quietly.

Five’s face softened incrementally as he looked at her. “Be real, Vanya,” he said. He shifted to nurse his coffee a little closer, draining the cup in one go. “Now, if this riveting family therapy session is over, I still have loose ends to tie up.”

“Whoa whoa, _what?”_ Klaus managed.

“What the hell could you _possibly_ still have to do?” Diego asked.

“Well, less than a week from now, a 13 year old version of me will be jumping into the future,” Five said. He chuckled to himself hollowly. “Well. Present. Either way, I don’t want to find out what happens if there’s two of me in the same place at the same time, so I’ll be jumping to that exact moment to superimpose myself on that version of me.” He tilted his head in an amused manner. “That, or you’ll have a very confused 13 year old on your hands.”

“Wait,” Allison said, sitting up. “So you’re saying there’s a possibility this version of you could die, pretty much?”

_“In_ the unlikely event that happens,” Five said, draining the last of his coffee, “you can think of it more as,” he shrugged, “amnesia. Not like there’s many good memories I’d be losing anyway.”

“Wait, no Five,” Klaus said, holding out a hand. “You’re…” He gestured at Five. “I mean, look at you. Shouldn’t you… you know, hold your horses?”

“Yeah, you look half dead,” Ben added.

“For the next hour, the jump should be a lot easier than it would be any later,” Five said. “For… well, math reasons. You wouldn’t get it.” He stood up to set his cup in the sink.

“Five,” Ben said, moving to head Five off.

Five disappeared, reappearing on the other side of the table. “I’ll see you all in a week,” he said, smoothing out his shirt. He turned to go, then sighed, turning around to look at them. “But just in case… goodbye. Believe it or not, I _do_ appreciate that you all saved the world for me.”

“ _Five_ ,” Vanya said, but Five was already gone, leaving a smarting hole where he’d last stood.

“Great,” Luther muttered. “First we fail Vanya, then Five. Seems like apocalypse or no apocalypse, we’re always doomed to make life infinitely worse for one of us.”

“At least it wasn’t your fault this time,” Vanya murmured.

Luther gave her a look that was too weary to count as amusement. “Thanks, Vanya.”

She shrugged, chewing at her lip in worry.

“And at least the world didn’t end because of it this time,” Klaus said under his breath. He watched the table somberly for a moment, then took a deep breath. “Well, since he’s gone for the next few days regardless of what we do, we might as well do our own thing until he gets back.” He bounced to his feet. “I have an old man to seduce.”

“I should go back home to Claire while I can,” Allison mumbled. She missed Claire, and part of her still worried that if she wasn’t present, Patrick would snatch visitation rights away from her.

“I can come with you, if you like,” Luther said. She nodded at him with a small smile.

“I need to talk to Helen. In person,” Vanya added. “We agreed we’d talk about _us_ once the world didn’t end, so…”

“Eudora’s probably waiting for me to go home finally too,” Diego added.

“And I should probably figure out how to tell my boss that I don’t remember getting my doctorate,” Ben said glumly.

“Hey, just ask for a leave of absence and then pick Five’s brain when he gets back,” Klaus said. “Well, unless he’s a kid.” He thought about it for a moment. “Actually, no, even then. He might even be better at explaining without being a dick.” He hummed. “Is it kind of bad that I’m hoping a little bit that he’ll just show up as a kid?”

“Yes,” Allison said, giving him an incredulous look.

“Only a little,” Klaus whined.

Allison rolled her eyes, picking up her jacket. “Vanya, you want us to go over to Helen’s with you before we head to the airport?”

“Actually, yeah,” Vanya breathed. “I could use some moral support.”

“Should I…” Luther said, making a confusing gesture.

“Yes, Luther, you can come too,” Vanya said with a snort.

“Diegoooo, drive me to Dave’s?” Klaus whined, as Ben pulled his own book out of his jacket pocket to start reading it.

Worry still gnawed at Allison’s gut, but Klaus was right. They’d deal with Five when he came back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really love all the comments that are like "I'm in pain! Thanks!" It's truly an accomplishment to be revered for my evil mind.
> 
> Next time: Hey remember that letter Five wrote them? Yeah. That one. Yeah.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I survived Endgame. Wow, that's a lot of movie to have in one movie. I loved it but I feel like I'm still buffering.

“And that is the story of how we traumatized our traumatized brother even more to save the world,” Klaus finished, handing Dave a cup of tea.

“You know you don’t have to do things for me,” Dave said, amusement playing at the corners of his lips. The way his eyes smiled was so familiar, even with the added wrinkles.

“No, I want to,” Klaus said. He really did want to do anything he possibly could for Dave, and possibly lay his head into Dave’s lap and sleep there for a year. “I’m still young and have two hands.” He showed them to Dave almost as though Dave hadn’t noticed.

Dave smiled, laughing softly.

Klaus wanted to look at him forever.

“Well, sounds like a real mess,” Dave said, sipping at his tea. “You think your brother’ll be okay?”

“I mean…” Klaus said, shrugging. “As okay as he ever is. He’s a resilient little thing.” He sighed. “I wish I knew how to help him, though.” He sat down next to Dave, letting their thighs touch. It was so tempting not to just throw himself on top of Dave and cling to him like a koala.

“You will,” Dave assured him.

“How do you even know that?” Klaus laughed. Dave seemed so confident that Klaus could do just about anything.

“I have a good intuition when it comes to people,” Dave said. “And I know you’re a special one.”

Klaus felt giddy at the words, closing his eyes to cherish them. “I love you so much,” he managed.

“Klaus,” Dave warned, though it was a soft, amused warning.

Klaus opened his eyes. “Hey, rule of thumb is half your age plus six isn’t creepy yet,” he blurted.

“So you’re saying you’re 41?” Dave asked, corners of his eyes crinkling.

Klaus thought about it. “No, I’m… I’m just really bad at math.” He pulled his legs up so he was kneeling on the couch looking at Dave. “And really, when you think about it, the rule of thumb is the creepy one.”  He sighed. “Look, I… I promise I’ll back off if you tell me to, because having you in my life is way more important than _how_ you’re in my life, but I just… If it’s _only_ the age thing I just don’t think it matters. I mean it’s not like you’re a grown man dating a teenager or something. We’re both adults and it’s not like you’ll take advantage of me. You’re the nicest guy I’ve ever seen.”

“Klaus,” Dave said gently, rubbing Klaus’ arm. Klaus tried not to shiver at the touch. “You’re young, you’ve got so much life ahead of you. You deserve someone who can keep up with you.”

“No,” Klaus said, a borderline hysterical laugh leaping up his throat as he did. “I’m all over the place. People who can keep up with me are – are crazy people. I need someone steady, someone I can come home to, who will always listen and…” He sighed. “I want you. And even if you die way earlier than me, I can still talk to you, right?”

“What about sex?” Dave asked, though he had a telling smile creeping over his face as he said it. “No way I can keep up with you there.”

“Who cares about sex?” Klaus exclaimed. “I don’t need sex. I mean, I do, but I can take care of that myself, it doesn’t have to be with you. Or, honestly, I can take care of it myself and you can participate by doing whatever, because I have literally every single kink on the planet. But…” He threw his hands up, trying to clear the air and start over. This was in no way about sex. “No, look, that isn’t important to me. This is not a sex thing, even if I really struggle to say sentimental things without innuendo. I just want to be able to curl up next to you and kiss you, sometimes, and… and…”

“Cuddle?” Dave offered.

“Yes, cuddle,” Klaus said, so relieved he could practically cry. He wanted to cuddle with Dave more than anything. “That’s all.”

Dave sighed, mulling it over. “I don’t want you to give up on finding someone your own age because of me.”

“But—“

“No, I’m not saying no. You’re a wonderful, fascinating man, and I can see I’m lucky to have you wanting to be in my life. So we can… cuddle, and you’re always welcome here, but I want you to keep giving other people a chance if they catch your eye, got it?” Dave said, severe as he could be when he was clearly ready to laugh at how eager Klaus probably looked.

“Okay, deal,” Klaus said, though he didn’t see how he was going to have eyes for anyone else when he knew he could go home to Dave. “So can I lay down in your lap please?”

Dave chuckled. “Yes, okay, fine,” he said.

Klaus breathed out a sigh of relief and rolled over until his head was in Dave’s lap and his legs were draped over the armrest. “God, thank you,” he said. “I really really really needed this.”

“Clearly,” Dave said, petting his hair softly.

“Oh, Jesus,” Klaus said. “I may die. Tell my family I died happy, from an exploded heart.”

Dave laughed. “Sure, I’ll do that.”

**

“Are you ever going to stop quizzing me?” Diego asked.

“Not until you’ve passed one of the practice exams,” Eudora said, raising a brow. “You’re lucky I didn’t send you back to the academy.”

“Oh, yeah, that would have been so easy to explain,” Diego said. “Hey, sorry everyone, my colleague here, a seasoned detective, has time travelled his way out of proper training, please send him back to square one.”

“God, you’re unbearable,” Eudora said, fighting a smile. “This is why we broke up in an alternate timeline.”

“Ha, but that’s not this timeline,” Diego said, nuzzling at her cheek. “And you still loved me in both timelines.”

“Sure,” she said, her arm sliding around him. “Obviously you’d never just say that because of your own ego.”

“I’m a man of my word, baby,” Diego said.

“Call me baby again and I’m arresting you,” she replied, but she let him kiss her. He pulled her in close and squeezed until she pulled away. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m just relieved you’re here, and the world isn’t over and…” He sighed. “And I’m worried about Five.”

“He’ll be back soon and you’ll handle it,” Eudora said, rubbing his back. “You meaning your whole family, of course. You alone could not handle it.”

“Thank you, honey, you’re so supportive.”

She grinned at him. “I know I am.”

“I just…” Diego said, sighing. “I feel like we let him down.”

“He made his own decisions. Locked you into a hotel room, if I remember correctly,” Eudora said, resting her head on his shoulder and looking up at him with a cheeky look. Still, the look in her eyes was soft and understanding. “It was a team failure, really.”

Diego snorted. “I guess so. I just… I guess when I saw him that freaked out, that was the first time I really realized what it must have been like for him, you know? He usually acts so… aloof.”

“Mm,” Eudora said. “So do you, when you feel the worst. Like you’re above all the crap.”

“Huh,” Diego said. “I guess so, yeah.”

“Listen, your family will do what they’ve always done,” Eudora said. “Roll with the punches. Deal with things as they come.”

“Sure,” Diego said, stroking her hair behind her ear. “Are you just saying that because until he reappears you want my undivided attention?”

“I might be,” Eudora said, grinning. “In exchange I promise to give backup when you’re dealing with him.”

“Okay,” Diego said, rolling them over so she was on top of him and grinning back. “Sounds like a deal.”

**

Ben sighed as he flipped open another book. The house was awfully empty now, and it had been ages since Ben had ever been truly alone. He’d invaded Five’s room for now, mostly to steal his textbooks, but now he just missed him.

Allison and Luther would be flying back soon, Pogo was still around, awkward as that was, and Grace was happy to have him keep her company while she cleaned and made cookies, but it was lonely like this. Apparently having been dead for many years didn’t make for a very vibrant social life. He groaned, stretching and going downstairs to find something more interesting to do.

He hadn’t had many hobbies as Klaus’ ghost, either, but at least he always had Klaus around, which was many things, but never boring. Of course, Klaus would immediately run back to spend time with him if Ben called, but they both needed a break from each other while they could get it.

He sighed. “Hey, Mom?” he called.

A moment later, she came down the stairs. “Yes, dear?”

“You wanna go for a walk outside?” Ben asked. “Maybe buy a TV for this place?”

She smiled brightly. “Of course,” she said. “I would like that very much.”

He was pretty sure she meant it. “Here, let me get your coat,” Ben said, holding his arm out for her to hold while they made their way to the coat rack by the door. “It’s been a while since either of us was really free, huh?”

She smiled. “Yes, I suppose so,” she said, looking at the sky as they stepped outside. “It’s a beautiful day.”

Ben leaned his head on her shoulder for a moment in affection. “Yeah, it is.”

**

“Okay, uh… favorite color?” Vanya asked.

“Wow, you’re really going in depth on these questions, huh?” Helen said, resting her cheek on her hand.

“I’m sorry, it’s hard to think of good questions to get to know someone,” Vanya said. “And I’ve asked everything good I had.”

So far she knew that Helen had been playing violin since she was 6, was an only child, was three fourths Korean and one fourth Irish. She knew Helen had played softball for a year in high school before giving up because she’d hated it. She knew Helen liked true crime shows and romantic comedies, and she knew that Helen had a sly, sideways smile when she was genuinely enjoying herself.

“Grey, I guess,” Helen said.

“Grey?” Vanya asked. “No one’s favorite color is grey. Are you sure you’re not a serial killer too?”

“Very funny,” Helen said, mouth twisting a little as she glanced at Vanya sidelong. “But I suppose I like atmospheres more than colors. Dewy, rainy mornings, misty evenings… Grey reminds me of those, but it could be blue or green just as well.”

“You’re so pretentious,” Vanya laughed.

Helen gave her a pinched smile which Vanya was starting to guess meant she was participating in the teasing. “What’s your favorite color, then?” She took a sip of the wine they’d broken out in an attempt to make things slightly less awkward. So far, it seemed to be working.

“Blue,” Vanya said.

“Boring.”

“It’s a nice color!” Vanya said, laughing. “Fine, favorite classic painter.”

“Monet, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Vanya snorted. “I like Salvador Dali,”

“And you’re calling me a serial killer?”

“Why would that make me a serial killer?” Vanya said, trying not to giggle. “They’re good paintings!”

“No one normal has ever said Dali is their favorite painter,” Helen replied. “Ever. Can’t believe I never noticed this about you in all my years dating you.”

“Okay, that seems like an exaggeration,” Vanya said. “They’re not that weird.”

“The paintings are fine, it’s just not anyone’s go-to.”

Vanya shook her head, laughing. It tapered off after a moment. Five had shown her the first Dali painting she’d ever seen. He liked strange clocks, collected them and took them apart all the time, and as such he’d been somewhat entertained by Dali’s clocks.

He hadn’t been too interested in the rest of Dali’s paintings, but he had gotten books with pictures of the paintings in them for Vanya once he realized she liked them.

“Your mind’s elsewhere again,” Helen remarked.

“No, I’m… here,” Vanya said. “I mean, mostly. I’m… I’m paying attention. I really do want to get to know you.”

Helen sighed. “Just tell me what you’re thinking about.”

“No, you deserve at least a few nights that aren’t about my weird family,” Vanya said. “We’re always going to have so much going on, and—“

“Vanya,” Helen said. “I like listening to you. I like feeling like you trust me. Just tell me.”

Vanya grimaced. “I’m just worried about Five, but…” She shook her head. “There’s not much I can do. He’s too used to being on his own, and I don’t think he even wants our help.”

“Doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t need it,” Helen murmured.

“He’s just so… distant,” Vanya said. “I have no idea how to get through to him, or if it’d even help.”

Helen smiled at her, an oddly sentimental look crossing her face. Vanya had a sneaking suspicion actually confiding in her was putting Helen at ease more than any awkward attempts to get to know her again had. “Funny, that’s never how you described him,” Helen said.

“Well, he was gone for a long time,” Vanya said. She looked at Helen, turning a little to face her. “How did I describe him?”

“Nostalgically, of course,” Helen said. “But also… smart. Playful. And you definitely did call him an aloof little shit a few times.”

Vanya laughed at that. “I did, huh?”

“Mhmm,” Helen said, smiling. “But you talked a lot about how much he cared. And how you missed him, and hoped he was okay.”

Vanya sighed, swallowing. “We really scared the shit out of him,” she said. “I mean, it was to save the world, which is what he came back here for, but I still feel awful about it. He thought he watched us all die.”

“God,” Helen murmured. “That must have been awful for him.”

Vanya nodded, leaning into Helen’s warmth a little more. She was a lot more alluring than Leonard, not just for comfort, but in the soft slope of her lips and the smell of her hair. “You say that like you know him,” she remarked, though part of her mind had departed from the topic and decided it was a lot more important to touch that silky hair.

“Well, I am a little nosy,” Helen said, slightly sheepish. “After you’d read it in front of me a few times, you showed me his letter before I sprained my neck trying to read it over your shoulder.”

Vanya frowned, reluctantly drawing away from that tempting spot where Helen’s hair flowed over her shoulder. “Letter?”

“Yeah,” Helen said. “He left…” She took a deep breath. “You haven’t read it.”

“No,” Vanya said, watching remorsefully as Helen stood.

“You probably should,” Helen said, before leaving the room.

The parts of Vanya’s brain that really wanted to feel what Helen’s waist felt like under her hand cursed the parts of her brain that were still worried about Five, but she sighed, sitting back on the couch to wait for Helen.

Helen returned with an envelope, handing it to Vanya.

Vanya carefully unfolded it. Five’s small, tight handwriting stared back at her.

Dear Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Ben, and last but definitely not least, Vanya, it read.

Vanya’s breath left her as she continued to read. “Oh my god,” she muttered. “I have to show this to the others.”

“Yeah, I thought so,” Helen said, sighing in defeat.

Vanya bit her lip. “But… they’re probably busy. I’ll just call them and…” She bit her lip. “And wait for Allison and Luther to get back. And until then we can…” She shrugged awkwardly. “Talk.” She couldn’t help the way her eyes flickered to look at Helen’s lips. They were very nice lips.

Helen smiled slowly. “Talk?” she asked leaning in just enough to make Vanya glance at her lips again.

“Or whatever,” Vanya mumbled, and then kissed her.

**

“Okay, sweetie, you be good for your dad now, alright?” Allison said, putting Claire down.

Claire nodded, running to Luther to get a hug from him too. He seemed surprised by it, even though Claire adored Luther, but he gave her a big hug anyway before letting her run inside.

Patrick sighed. “Allison,” he said, pulling her aside. Luther raised a brow at her, but once she nodded he left to wait in the car. “Is this going to be a habit?”

“Is what going to be a habit?” she asked.

“You leaving to see your family,” Patrick said.

“My Dad died less than two weeks ago, Patrick,” Allison snapped.

“Look, I’m not trying to start an argument here,” Patrick said. “I get it. But I know that a lot of the reason you didn’t go home was because of your dad, and if you’re going to be there a lot, then… you have to think about how to make that work with Claire. She’s your family too.”

“Obviously I know that,” Allison said.

“Like I said,” Patrick said. “It’s not an attack. But if you move back home, or whatever, you’ve got to work with me to make changing visitation schedules as smooth as possible for Claire.”

Allison took a deep breath. “I don’t know yet,” she said. “But right now, there’s just too much going on. I need to be home.”

“Sure,” Patrick replied, nodding. “Claire’s happy here, she’s been really glad to get calls from you, just… don’t put off deciding, alright?”

Allison sighed. “Okay. I’ll keep you updated.”

“And say hi to your family,” Patrick said, though the way he said it sounded a lot like he was trying not to dislike the family.

She gritted her teeth and reminded herself not to fly off the handle. “I will.” She stepped out the door, calling back, “Bye Claire! I love you so much!”

“I love you too, Mom!” Claire replied, and Patrick smiled at Allison. She returned the smile until he closed the door, at which point she made a sharp noise of frustration and stormed down the driveway to Luther.

“He gets on my nerves so much,” Allison said. “As though I don’t think about Claire all the time!”

“Did he say you didn’t?” Luther asked, like he was ready to go back in and tell Patrick off.

“No, it’s just… he brought up visitation schedules like I’d forgotten about the fact that we’d have to figure something out if I moved home and just… Ugh.”

“Are you moving back home?” Luther asked, starting the car.

“I don’t know!” Allison yelled. “I mean, Dad’s dead, so why not, but at the same time… Claire is here and all and… I just… God, I don’t know.” She sighed. “Just drive, or we’re going to miss our flight.”

“Alright,” Luther said. “Look, if you and I stayed here in LA, I think the others would be fine. There’s no more apocalypse to stop.”

“Yeah but I… I’d just miss everyone,” Allison said. “It was easy to run away when it felt like I was only leaving Dad, but now Dad’s gone and I just… I don’t know what I want.”

Luther nodded. “I get that. You’ll figure it out when the time comes, I’m sure.”

She gave him a feeble nod of her own, sitting back and trying to think while Luther continued driving.

At least the flight was direct, meaning she didn’t have to function too much while she was going back and forth over her options in her head.

Diego came to pick them up at the airport, which was a refreshing change, but it didn’t stop Allison from being sullen in the backseat while Luther tried to explain to Diego. “Oh, yeah, Vanya says we have to see something,” Diego said. “So, get ready for a family meeting the second we go inside.”

“Great,” Allison sighed. “Of course.”

She trudged up the stairs once they were home, Luther easily grabbing both their bags – despite Diego trying to grab one from him as they squabbled over it. She made her way to the living room, where she dropped her jacket on a chair. “Just tell me it’s not more bad news,” she said, exhausted.

“Well,” Vanya said. “It’s sort of… old news.”

“Oh my god, just tell us!” Klaus whined.

Luther and Diego were still squabbling when they entered the room, but they stopped when they saw Vanya’s nervous face.

“Shit, what happened?” Diego asked.

“Nothing, really,” Vanya said. “It’s just… you know how Five wrote us all a letter for when we were 13?”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “Telling us the truth, he said.”

“Well, I kept it,” Vanya said. “Timeline two me, I mean. And after everything that’s happened lately, it’s…” She looked down at the envelope in her hand. “It’s a lot.”

Allison stepped closer to take it, unfolding it as she sat down on the sofa so the others could sit around her.

_Dear Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Ben and last but very much not least, Vanya,_

_Now that you’ve found all my clues, I have to admit that I lied to all of you. I haven’t been stuck in the past, I’ve been in the future. Far enough in the future that it’s been a very, very long time since I’ve seen any of you. I’ve tried a thousand times at least to get back, but time travel is anything but an exact science, and going back turns out to be a lot harder than going forward._

_I did all of this because there’s a lot of things I’ve learned here in the future that you need to be ready for. I’d tell you all about it, but trust me when I say there’s some things you’re not ready to know at your age. I know I wasn’t, and I’d rather you not go through the same thing I went through. When it’s time, I’ll find all of you and tell you everything, I promise. Until then, you’ll just have to trust me._

_While I’m here, though, there’s a lot of things I’ve wanted to say in the years since I’ve seen you, and they’re things that I hope will help all of you too as time goes on._

_In order:_

_Luther, I know this doesn’t sound like me at all, but I’d have given my left arm to have you here with me, even if it was only you. We’ve always butted heads, I know, but I miss how earnest and loyal you are. Don’t let Dad use those things to make you a soldier – you’ve always been there for us, and it’s not because you’re in charge, it’s because you care. It’s okay to just be our brother. You’re a lot better at that than being a leader, and you should be proud of that. I’d say I wish you were here to give me a hug, but about three seconds into it I’d probably break down and do something embarrassing, so maybe it’s for the best that you can’t._

_Diego, you’re an asshole and a hothead and there’s not a single windy night where I don’t wish you were here beside me to protect me while I try to sleep. You’re always looking out for us, and you’re going to do a great job of it. Dad’s going to try to pit you against Luther for the rest of his life, and it’s never going to mean shit, because the sort of leader Dad wants for us would never care about us like you do. You’re protective and strong, and a better man than Dad could ever hope to be._

_Allison, if you were here I’d just listen to you talk for hours. I know sometimes you worry that your life is made up of rumors, but you’re the realest, deepest person I know. You’re capable of anything, rumor or no rumor. Maybe it’s going to take you a while to figure out where you want to and need to go, and while you’re trying to figure it out, maybe you’ll do some selfish things you’ll regret. But no matter what, you’re going to be a great sister. You always have been and always will be, and none of your mistakes will ever be able to hold a candle to that._

_Klaus. I don’t even know where to start with you. You’re good at everything I’m not good at. You see people – not just dead people, but everyone. If you ever decide to face your power, do it because of that, not because of Dad. Do it because you have an incredible capacity for caring, and loving, and understanding. Dad thinks you’re weak, but Dad could never do a fragment of what you do – hear, see and feel every single soul that comes your way, living or dead. If you were here, I know you’d know all the things I needed, and you’d tell me in the most annoying way possible, but I don’t even care. I wish you were here._

_Ben, in a lot of ways, you’re my best friend. You’re smart and kind and you have the patience to put up with me, which is really something. I’d say more, but you already know what I mean, I’m sure. I know you hate your powers, and that’s alright. You’re more than them, more than the thing inside you. You can do anything you put your mind to, and you deserve all the time in the world to do it. I know you’re going to do something incredible with your life. Please take care of yourself._

_Vanya. If I’ve succeeded at anything in this endeavor, then you know you’re anything but ordinary. But even if you were the most ordinary person on the planet, you’d still have a place in this family. You are kind and thoughtful, and you’ve always been there for us when we needed you, even when we didn’t return the favor. Dad will try to take away the things that make you special, but you can’t let him. He’s afraid of things he can’t control, and you were never made to be controlled. You were made to flourish – and you deserve it all._

_I’m not going to be back for a long, long time. Believe me when I say it’s very much not by choice. I would do anything to be back with you all, but since I can’t, please promise me you’ll all do it for me. That you’ll take care of each other, and choose each other over Dad, over the “Umbrella Academy.” That you’ll be there for each other, as a family, no matter how frustrating or hard it gets. When I get back, when all of this is over, I’m going to try my hardest to join in too, even if it’s hard to remember what it’s like to not be alone._

_I love and miss all of you so, so much,_

_5_

They sat in silence for a long time, staring at the letter, until Klaus finally sniffled loudly. “Hang on, guys, I need a breather,” he said slipping off the couch and wandering out of the room, hands on his back.

“Well, that’s sobering,” Diego muttered.

“We were not supposed to see this,” Allison said, though she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t glad she had seen it. Five had probably chosen his words carefully in an effort to change things, but she knew that had been an excuse to say all the things he’d thought at some point in his long time alone. Maybe things he hadn’t dared to think in case they distracted him from surviving long enough to save all of them.

“What are we going to do when he gets back?” Ben asked. “I mean, now we _really_ have to do something.”

“I have no idea,” Luther said. “But I know I’m going to give him that hug whether he likes it or not. He can stab me during it for all I care.”

Vanya laughed weakly. “He might.” She rubbed her temple. “God, no wonder we all grew up closer. I feel like I should never let any of you out of my sight again.”

Klaus returned, using his shirt to wipe his tear-stained face. “I told you guys it was sappy, didn’t I?”

Diego pulled him in for a hug. “Yeah, you did, you little shit.”

Allison took a deep breath, then joined them before she could burst into tears. It didn’t help much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, only one chapter left. I'm probably gonna post that on the weekend sometime so I can post the first chapter of a sequel on May 1st (which is where it picks up, so... y'know. It's obligatory.) As for the sequel: Should I attempt to have longer chapters on a weekly basis or is shorter chapters posted like a maniac working for everyone? If anyone has opinions on that it'd be much appreciated.
> 
> ANYWHO. Next time: Five, at *some* age, shows up to a family deadset on hugging him to death. It goes... well...


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dang. Here we go, the last chapter. Now with all the hugs.

Five skidded to a stop.

The strange entanglement he’d experienced last time he’d switched with an alternate timeline version of himself hit him full force, a strange wave of being 13, 27 and 58 all at once sweeping through his mind like a shiver of the brain. This was probably what the old man had meant by the effects time travel could have on his mind.

He stopped, looking around, trying to blink through the pain in his head. For a moment, his brain was too muddled to make sense of his surroundings, and then…

Ash. 

He whirled around. Everything was on fire. It was all rubble again.

“No no no,” he cried, running back to the Academy. It was gone. All of it was gone. How? They’d stopped it, they’d fixed everything, how was it gone again? He’d only been gone a few days, what could have possibly gone wrong? “No!”

He had to check for the bodies. He jumped the rest of the way, stumbling when his feet hit wood instead of stone and dirt. He whirled around. The Umbrella Academy was standing, but it was dark and empty in a haunting way. The windows were broken behind him, glass littering the ground, books and pieces of furniture strewn across the entrance.

He jumped to the kitchen. No one. The bedrooms. No one. The living room. No one. 

He heard a sparking noise upstairs and jumped to follow it. 

Mom’s charging station. He crept closer, heart beating in his throat as he inched nearer to find Grace on the ground, wires pulled out indiscriminately from her back. “Mom?” he croaked.

A board creaked behind him and he whirled around, backing up so quickly he thudded against the wall. He had to find something to defend himself with or get out of here. He sank down behind the seat and listened to the creak of footsteps. They were ever so slightly off somehow, but he couldn’t tell what it was that bothered him about the sound. 

“Five!” said a voice from the other direction, startling him out of his focus.

It was as though the whole world had been spun around in a circle and landed elsewhere. The lights were suddenly on again. Five tried to reach for Grace, but stumbled when he found only empty air. The shattered glass strewn around the place was all gone and the echoing silence was replaced by thundering feet.

Six strangers stared at him.

One moved forward as if to grab him, but he skittered away. “Who the hell are you?” he snapped, wishing he didn’t sound so… so young. It was one thing, going up against people twice his age with his brothers and sister, but alone he just felt small, especially compared to the alarming height of the man reaching for him.

“Shiiiiiit,” one of them whispered. “He’s 13.”

“And? Don’t think I can’t still take you,” Five snapped.

“Five,” the man who had reached for him said, putting his hands up calmingly. “It’s me, Luther.”

Five took another wary step back. Luther? Five barely reached this man’s shoulder. He couldn’t possibly be Luther. Five blinked at him. “What?” he managed, and now he really sounded like a scared kid. Stupid. If this was a trick, it was _ not  _ a good idea to show weakness.

“I’m Luther,” Luther said, pointing at himself. “Diego.” He pointed at the guy behind him. “Allison, Klaus…” The wave was unmistakable. That was Number Four’s awkward flailing alright, and Five could see his tattoo. “And… Ben and Vanya.”

Five glanced between all of their worried faces. Everyone was taller than him, older than him… “This is the future?” Now that he looked closer, it was obvious they were his siblings, old as they were. “How…” How long had he left them? “How far? What’s the date?”

“April 9th, 2019,” Vanya offered.

Well, that wasn’t right. Five couldn’t put his finger on why, but… “That doesn’t make any sense. It’s not supposed to…” he breathed. “It’s not… The world isn’t…” His head hurt like it was trying to split itself open from the inside.

“Shit,” Klaus said again.

“Five. We stopped the apocalypse, remember?” Luther said warily. “You were here too.” 

Five’s head throbbed, and he stifled a whimper as he pressed his palm to his forehead. The world was supposed to be ash… or empty, filled with monsters… or…

“I’m going to touch you, okay?” Luther murmured, suddenly much closer than Five had realized. He scooted closer like he was worried Five would vanish if startled. He bent his knees so he didn’t loom over Five as much. “Okay.” He took Five’s sleeve into his hand and pulled just a little, like a request for Five to bridge the remaining gap between them.

For a moment, Five looked at him and saw him dead, covered in ash and blood, maggots flickering in and out of existence on his face. He barely managed to avoid screaming, but he froze, breath escaping his chest and refusing to return.

Luther tugged a little harder on his sleeve, and Five felt too queasy to stay standing against the force of it. He stumbled forward, letting Luther drop to one knee to catch him and hold him up against his chest. His warm, breathing chest. “Shit, Five,” he muttered, surreptitiously checking for injuries.

Five wasn’t injured anymore, but his legs had given up, knees shaking like leaves. He remembered now. He remembered everything so clearly he could taste the ash on his tongue, feel the searing pain from when that thing had launched itself at him in the empty house. He remembered too much, too many lifetimes. “You were crushed under a beam,” Five whispered. “I didn’t recognize you at first but I knew it was the Academy and so I knew it couldn’t be good, the corpses, the eye, the blood…”

“It’s okay, I’m not dead,” Luther said, rubbing his back. “No one’s dead.” Normally, the touch would be like a firehose of feelings Five wasn’t able to manage, but it seemed having mixed himself up with his 13 year old self was working out in his favor, because it just felt like he remembered touch being, like the touch he’d craved when he’d been alone.

“Well, Dad’s dead,” Klaus muttered behind him.

“Shut up,” Luther hissed, like that would stop Five from hearing while he was slumped against Luther’s chest like a ragdoll. But it didn’t matter. Five hadn’t mourned for his father, he’d mourned for his siblings.

“Then I saw Diego and Allison,” Five said, like he was unable to stop talking now he’d started. “And it started dawning on me. How far in the future I must have been. That… that you were…” He swallowed, but he knew tears weren’t going to be avoidable at this point. It had been so hot that his tears had dried from his eyes the moment they gathered, and so he had never taken much time to cry like he wanted to. It had been a hollow, stunned crying, but now there was no heat, no fire, no monsters, no end of the world to stop, and Five didn’t have the energy to keep himself together for nothing. “Then I saw Klaus’ tattoo and I knew.”

Five hadn’t cried for 15 years, but right now, he was 13 – or not, but the migraine he had made it too hard to think through just how old he was, or if his age had any relevance to anything at all anymore  – and his brother was twice his size and squeezing him tight, and Five had seen them dead, had seen them die in three different lifetimes. It was too much all at once, too many lives and years and jumps, and he pressed his face into Luther’s chest and cried like there was no tomorrow.

There was a tomorrow, and a tomorrow after that, and probably several tomorrows after that, and therefore there was no reason Five couldn’t cry all he wanted. He could cry until he couldn’t anymore, and there would still be a world around to greet him after he stopped.

He felt the rest of them surge forward to try to all rub his back or join in on the hug at once. “And I had to bury all of you,” he continued, though he wasn’t even sure they could hear him through all the shirt in his face and the sniffling, “except for Luther, because he was pinned and I couldn’t move him, and I needed to find water, so I just left him. And I couldn’t find Ben or Vanya so even though I… I knew... I… I let myself lie to myself, sometimes, just to keep going.”

“Oh, Five,” Vanya murmured, pressing her forehead against his shoulder.

“And then I found the library, and Vanya’s book, and Ben was already long dead,” Five continued. There was something absurd about feeling the tears drip from his chin. So much water. He would have probably died for this much water just flowing away like nothing in the apocalypse. “And in the other timeline it was even worse because I had that feeling for so long, because the house was here, and empty, and there were people, and I kept telling myself that you had to be out there somewhere.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Allison whispered. He suspected she was the one firmly petting his head.

“And then I found all of you, all together and dead,” Five said. “It was weeks into the apocalypse and the smell…” He gasped for fresh air, like he’d forgotten what it tasted like. “And… and I couldn’t fall apart because I’d started gathering survivors and they were all new to it and we were always on the verge of a meltdown if anyone in charge lost their cool, so I just… I just came home and I worked on Mom until she was back on her feet and I tried to forget all the blood and the rotting and—“

Luther squeezed him tighter, and Five wasn’t sure if it was the squeeze that was making it hard to breathe or the memory, too vivid for a memory that wasn’t supposed to be his.

“—and then I watched it all happen, and it was my fault because I came back and I thought I could do it alone and I walked right into it and—“

“It’s not your fault,” Vanya said. “Harold’s a good liar.”

“—and it was because I was a coward, because I knew when you’d faced him you were all together and you couldn’t win and so I didn’t want… I didn’t want… I don’t know, I don’t know what I didn’t want, I just—“

“Five, buddy, breathe,” Klaus said. “Hey. You’re freaking out, you gotta breathe.”

Five did so, though it wasn’t particularly graceful, and ended up turning into a wheezing sob.

“Well, alright, that was technically breathing,” Klaus said, patting his shoulder.

“We’re so sorry we put you through all this again,” Ben murmured.

Five shook his head. “It’s over now,” he mumbled. It wasn’t an explanation, but he hoped Ben understood - he’d meant what he’d said before leaving. Having to see his family die, as horrifying as it had been, was a small price to pay to avoid the real deal.

Ben sighed, squeezing his arm. “Yeah, but we’re still sorry.”

Five took a hiccuping breath, hiding his face in Luther’s shoulder as the tears picked up again.

“I’m going to take you upstairs, okay?” Luther said. “To your room, so you can rest.”

Five nodded, because frankly at this point they could do whatever they wanted with him. He had absolutely no energy left for anything whatsoever, except maybe crying.

“Okay,” Luther said, picking him up and starting towards the stairs.

Frankly, Five was running out of energy for crying, too. 

It was really over. He’d arrived in the future, again, and the world was still here. His family was still here. And after so many years spent putting every fiber of his being into saving the world and the six of them, he felt like he’d finally used it all up. Like he’d hit a level of exhaustion that wasn’t supposed to exist, just like this day wasn’t supposed to exist.

Luther settled them both on the bed, shifting until Five was cradled in his arm with enough room for everyone to surround him, all of them nestling around him and letting him cry until he trailed off from exhaustion. He was swinging back to his original self, or at least something closer to it, and it was getting beyond overwhelming, all of them touching him at once, but he didn’t think he could stand any of them letting go just yet.

“So uh… how old are you now, then?” Klaus said, after a long silence while they all waited for Five to stop sniffling. “13 with 60 years of memories, or 58 with 60 years of trauma that stunted your emotional development since you were 13? Twice?”

“Both,” Five managed, taking a shaking breath. “Neither. I don’t know.”

“Well, potato, potah-toh, I guess,” Klaus said, nudging Five’s foot tenderly from where he was sitting on the floor, leaning his chin onto the bed.

Five snorted.

“Oh my god,” Klaus gasped dramatically. “Was that a real smile?”

Five rolled his eyes. Klaus certainly knew how to keep up a baseline of such nonsense that he could restore their brand of “normalcy” to any situation in a heartbeat. As long as Klaus was still Klaus, the world made sense. “Shut up.” He swallowed, sniffling a little to stop his nose from dripping. “This is a onetime thing, by the way. I’m not making a habit of snuggling up with the six of you, no matter  _ how _ old I am.”

“Come on, Five,” Allison cooed, leaning her elbow onto Luther’s side to grin at him over it. “Would it really be so bad to make a habit out of this?”

“It would be excruciating,” Five muttered. “Just because I missed all of you doesn’t mean I want to spend the rest of my life smothered by your dysfunctional asses.”

“There’s our Five,” Diego said, patting his knee.

Five found his eyes were closed, though he didn’t remember closing them. “Live it up now,” he mumbled. “Tomorrow I’ll stab you if you talk down to me like that.” That got a general amused murmur of disbelief which he couldn’t blame any of them for. Five didn’t believe himself either. “But I’m more glad than I could ever say that you’re all alive.” He was going to fall asleep soon, and he didn’t want to fall asleep on some ridiculous attempt at bravado.

“Aww,” Klaus said. “We love you too, kiddo.”

Five hummed in response before he found himself dropping into sleep like a rock.

**

Allison had to admit, there were few things she’d been as pleased to see as Five shuffling into the kitchen after having slept at least fifteen hours and going straight for the fridge instead of for coffee.

“Well,” she said.

“I can already tell you’re going to ask something aggravating,” Five said.

“Now that there’s a chance for the answer to be different, how are you?” she asked, trying to hide a smirk.

Five sighed, getting out a carton of eggs. “I have no clue.”

Allison laughed softly at that. “Didn’t think this far ahead?”

“Not really,” Five said. “In timeline one, there was that brief moment where we thought we’d stopped the apocalypse, and that’s essentially the only time I even thought about what came next.”

“What’d you come up with?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Five said, cracking the eggs into a pan. “Other than the fact that I had to think of something. I didn’t try this hard to save everyone just to give up on life the second I did.”

“Yeah,” Allison murmured. “I’m sure you’ll find something to do.”

Five glanced at her sidelong. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to rumor everyone into forgetting about last night?”

“Not a chance,” she said, grinning. “You needed that cry and everyone else needed to be there for you during it.”

Five sighed. “Thought you’d say that. Personally, I think it was a gratuitous abuse of the fact that my age is now best described by a probability density distribution.”

“Well, the average of 13, 27 and 58 is… well, almost our age,” Allison said. “So there you go.”

Five gave her the most ridiculously teenage sullen look. “That’s not how this works. They don’t all have the same weight. Frankly, the ratios of versions of me that add up to the current me that’s standing before you aren’t even static. My age is a constantly fluctuating function of so many variables I couldn’t even begin to list them.”

“You know what I’m getting from this?” Allison said, trying not to grin.

“No, and I’m guessing I don’t want to.”

“The next time you try to tell me you’re not a child, there’s technically no proof that you’re right,” Allison said.

“No,” Five warned, pointing the spatula in his hand at her threateningly. “That is not the takeaway here.”

“It is for me,” Allison teased.

“No, the primary version of me is still 58. I am not a child,” Five said, brandishing the spatula like it was a knife.

“Your eggs are burning,” Allison pointed out innocently.

Five scrambled to stir the eggs. “You’re my least favorite sister,” he muttered.

“Ah, what drama is unfolding here?” Klaus said, taking a chair.

“Five isn’t sure if he’s a child or not,” Allison said.

“That is not what I said and I’m not a child.”

“Sure, kiddo, we all know that,” Klaus chirped.

Five threw the spatula at him, making Diego jump slightly as he walked in, then look at Five with a sigh. “Really?”

“He had it coming.”

Vanya and Luther followed him, talking about music. Allison’s heart soared. Ben took slightly longer to join them, reading a book as he went.

“So, what now?” Allison asked, once they were all seated with food.

There was an awkward silence around the table as everyone thought about it.

“I mean, I have a concert coming up,” Vanya said, finally. “And a girlfriend to remember.”

“And Klaus and I have jobs,” Diego added, absurdly proud.

“And an old man to romance,” Klaus said, putting his hands behind his head. Five gave him a look, and Klaus returned it with flair. “You are in no position to judge anyone about age, mister.”

_ “Why _ are you romancing an old man?” Five asked, like he didn’t want to know.

“Well when I met him he was a young man, and then he died, but now he didn’t die so he’s old and I still love him,” Klaus said. “Like I said earlier, except we kind of agreed to try again if I promise to give people my age a chance.”

Five nodded, though his face didn’t change.

“Oh, yeah, Five,” Ben said. “Do you think you could teach me enough quantum physics for me to fake a doctorate and teaching experience for my job in like… six months?”

“How could I  _ possibly _ know the answer to that question?” Five asked, staring at him.

“So worth a shot,” Klaus said cheerfully. “Yaaay!” He high-fived Ben.

Five pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I should head back to LA,” Allison said, though she said it with some reluctance. “And be with Claire.” She missed Claire already, but she also wished she could stay. She had no idea how hard it would be to negotiate with Patrick about changing their custody agreement so she could move back closer to home, but god was it tempting.

“I’ll probably go wherever you go,” Luther said. “If that’s okay.”

“Yeah,” Allison said, smiling softly. “That sounds nice.” She looked at the others. “By the way, I’m pretty sure in this timeline Luther and I are together. We’re still figuring out what exactly that means, but I wanted to mention it. I know it’s weird.”

“Whaaat? It’s not weiiiiird,” Klaus said, at the same time as Five said, “Very,” around a mouthful of eggs. 

Klaus smacked him on the shoulder, drawing a cool look from Five as he put down his fork. “But, as far as weird things in this family go, this one’s fairly pleasant, so…” He shrugged, which was about all the acceptance Allison could hope for. She smiled at him in relief.

“Yeah I think Five’s got us all beat for weirdest love life anyway,” Klaus said. He turned to look at Five. “Speaking of which, did you and Delores ever… I mean…” He made a crude hand gesture.

“What is wrong with you?” Five asked, narrowing his eyes at Klaus.

“I’m genuinely concerned! I mean… have you ever had any kind of sex?”

“Well, Delores and I had a more… cerebral connection, and I believe in timeline two I propositioned several dozen survivors while sitting on the chandelier, but seeing as I was insanely drunk, I promptly fell off the chandelier and broke many bones, so… No, probably not.”

Klaus hissed in sympathy. “Wow, I was sort of joking, but now I’m just sad.” He took a bite of his food. “Well, look, now that you’re here, you can…”

“Sleep with a pedophile?”

“You could sleep with someone your own… physical… age…” He stopped, obviously realizing how that sounded as he said it.

“So then I’m the pedophile.”

“Split the difference?”

“I will kill you if you don’t shut up.”

“You know, I’m not entirely sure I can die,” Klaus said, conversationally. 

“You can,” Five said, giving him a tired look. “Trust me on this, I am very, very sure you can.”

“Okay, fine, maybe I can die, but not very well. Last time I died it really didn’t stick.” He gasped. “Maybe being sober makes me immortal.”

“What?” Diego asked, whirling around to look at him. “When did you die?”

“Well, in the last timeline,” Klaus said, leaning in a little, “Luther was super high, and accidentally stole this guy’s girlfriend because she thought he was a furry—“

_ “Klaus.” _

“—and the guy went after him, so I stepped in to help, and I got body slammed, and I think they cracked my skull open, and that’s how I talked to Dad and possibly also god?”

“That sounds like a concussion,” Five said, squinting at him.

“No, I’m pretty sure he actually died,” Ben said. “Call it a hunch.”

Klaus held his hand out at Ben while looking at Five with a silent,  _ See? _

“I hate that I’m saying this,” Five said, looking at Klaus with a dangerous intensity, “but I think we should talk more.”

“I love you too, you little geezer,” Klaus cooed.

Five chucked a breakfast roll at his head.

It stopped midair. Before Allison had even registered how odd that was, Five had already snatched up a knife and brandished it at someone behind Allison, eyes wide. “What the hell do you want?” he snarled.

Allison turned to see a woman in a black dress and sunglasses. The woman folded up her veil and took off the sunglasses. “Well, aren’t you a tenacious little boy,” she told Five, who gripped the knife all the more ferociously. “You can relax, I’m here to admit defeat.”

“Why?” Five snapped.

“Are you in charge around here?” she asked. “If I remember correctly you were the one who nearly got the job done for us.” She looked him up and down. “And you’re… what? Ten?”

“What do you want,” Five hissed through clenched teeth.

“I just thought that since you won fair and square, it’s only polite to tell you that since you insisted on saving the world, it’s now your responsibility what happens next,” she said, with a sickly sweet faux innocence. “After all, now that humanity isn’t practically wiped out, you’ll be drawing attention. Reginald Hargreeves was only the start, and rather on the benevolent side, too.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Klaus whispered.

“Attention from who?” Luther demanded.

“Everyone,” the woman said. “We at the Commission felt that it was better for us humans to go out in a blaze of glory rather than crushed under the boot of beings we can’t begin to understand, but… well. Clearly, you knew better. So, have fun with that. The timeline is all yours from here on.”

She was gone in the blink of an eye, leaving only a small thud and a soft ow from Klaus as the roll finally hit him.

“What the hell was that about?” Vanya asked.

Five took a long breath in through his nose, putting down the knife like he had to individually will each of his fingers open. “Sounds like a tomorrow problem,” he said, though his tone was still terse. “Personally, until then, I’d rather meet Vanya’s and Diego’s girlfriends, Klaus’… whatever—“

“—his name is  _ Dave—” _

“—and, naturally, Claire.” He nodded at Allison, and she smiled despite her worry. “Plus, I have to tutor Ben, clearly.”

“A big step forward for you there, buddy,” Klaus said.

“We’re very proud of you,” Ben added.

Five ignored him. “We’ll deal with it as it comes,” he said. “At least now we know for sure the end of the world is shelved for the time being.”

“Hooray!” Klaus cheered.

Allison sighed. “I guess I should look into moving home, huh?”

Five smiled ever so slightly. “Probably.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. ANYWAY.
> 
> I'll be posting a sequel on May 1st, which at the moment looks like it will be a sprawling confused mess of "the family tries to live their lives and help Five be a person again" with a B plot of... stuff. There will also be more Five whump because I have a problem.

**Author's Note:**

> I have absolutely no sense of what kind of update schedule I can maintain for this. Frankly, I don't know anything ever. Please leave me comments to keep me company while I regret many decisions that led me here.


End file.
